An Unexpected Rose
by OrangeGalen
Summary: It's like a fairy tale! A noble quest with Wizards, Elves, Dwarves, dragons, and gold! My fellow companions are an... interesting bunch. And I could do without the Goblins and the Orcs. And the Trolls. And my ever-shrinking ammo supply. I do want to get home eventually, but they don't have Dust here. I'm stuck in Middle-Earth for a while... At least the scenery is nice though.
1. The Unexpected Arrival

**I do not own RWBY or any Tolkien related material, and have no claim on the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit movies or books. The idea for this story is mine, but nothing else. This is purely for fun.**

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 _My dear Frodo… you once asked me if I told you everything there is to know about my adventures. And while I can honestly say that I have told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it. I am old now Frodo and I'm not the same Hobbit as I once was. I think it is time for you to know what really happened, to have the full tale._

 _It began long ago in two lands; the first was far away to the east, the majesty of which remained unmatched for many years. There was the city of Dale, its markets known far and wide, full of the bounties of vine and vale: peaceful and prosperous. And this city lay before the doors of the greatest Dwarven kingdom in Middle-Earth: Erebor. Stronghold of Thror, King Under the Mountain: mightiest of the Dwarf Lords._

 _Thror ruled with utter surety, never doubting his house would endure for his line lay secure in the lives of his son and grandson._

 _Ah, Frodo, Erebor. Built deep within the mountain itself the beauty of this fortress city was legend. Its wealth lay within the earth in precious gems hewn from rock and in great seams of gold running like rivers through stone. The skill of the Dwarves was unequaled, fashioning objects of great beauty out of sliver, diamond, emerald, sapphire… and ruby._

 _Ever they delved deeper into the endless riches, down into the dark. And that is where they found it. The Heart of the Mountain. The Arkenstone._

 _Thror named it "The King's Jewel." He took it as a sign: a sign that his right to rule was divine. Far and wide all would pay homage to him; even the great Elven King, Thranduil of Mirkwood._ _However as the great wealth of the dwarves grew, their store of good will ran thin. It is not known what began the rift. The Elves say the Dwarves stole their treasure, but the Dwarves tell another tale. They say the Elven king refused to give them their rightful pay. It is sad, Frodo, how old alliances can be broken, how friendships between peoples can be lost. And for what? A few gems? A little bit of coin?_

 _The years of peace and plenty were not to last as slowly the days turned sour and the watchful nights closed in._

 _Thror's love of gold had grown too fierce. A sickness had begun to grow within him and in the minds of the other Dwarves. It was a sickness of the mind. And where sickness thrives, bad things will flock like carrion birds to a corpse. And flock they did._

 _The first warning was a noise like a hurricane coming down from the North. The pines on the mountain creaked and cracked in the hot, dry wind and were swiftly torn from the soil. Then a shadow fell upon the ground, moving faster than any bird or arrow. Smaug had come. He was a firedrake from the North, and he descended on the city of Dale in a ravaging inferno. Such wanton death was dealt that day, for this city of Men was nothing to Smaug. His eye was set on another, far greater prize. For dragons covet gold with a dark and fierce desire. None were a match for the beast._

 _Erebor was lost to the Dwarves, for a dragon will guard his plunder as long as he lives. Thranduil would not risk the lives of his kin against the wrath of the dragon. No help came from the Elves that day nor any day since._

 _Robbed of their homeland the Dwarves of Erebor wandered the wilderness… a once mighty and strong people brought low. A young Dwarf prince took work where he could find it, laboring in the villages of Men. But always he remembered the mountain smoke beneath the moon, the trees like torches blazing bright, for he had seen dragon fire in the sky and a city turned to ash. And he never forgave, and he never forgot._

 _Now, before my tale eventually begins, is one of a land further beyond even where the Valar reside. A land far more scarred and broken than our Middle-Earth: a land so broken, they named it Remnant, for only survivors lived there. A land with four great Kingdoms that our eyes will never see: Atlas, Vacuo, Mistral, and Vale._

 _The things that they have done would confound even the most experienced armor and weapon smiths of any race here. Great metal birds that fly through the sky, weapons that shoot further and faster than any bow here, and buildings that touch the sky like mountains. What I would give to see such things she had described._

 _Nevertheless, for all their achievements they did not live in paradise, as they had their own enemies. More bloodthirsty than any Orc or Goblin or Troll, they were known only as the Creatures of Grimm. The Grimm were not one species, but many different creatures that shared one common goal, one hunger: to kill the entire race of Man._

 _And in Remnant, a long time ago, they almost succeeded. But Man found their greatest source of power and magic in the elements. Dust is what they called it, and by harnessing this power, this magic, they drove back the creatures of darkness and forged their kingdoms to stand as beacons of light for all._

 _But the Grimm still lurked at the edges of their society, preying on any that strayed too far from their cities, waiting, and watching for a chance to sake their hunger. Villages would disappear in a night, and any chance to kill was taken. With this threat in mind, a brave few would dedicate their lives to protect Mankind from extinction, to combat the Grimm wherever they may strike, and act as the front lines against the forces of darkness. These were the Hunters and Huntresses of Remnant. The greatest warriors ever trained._

 _Wielding powers of the soul, which they call Aura and Semblance, they could do incredible feats that would be impossible for us. They could take a strike from a war ax and only stumble. A cut would heal in seconds. But for all their strengths, they could still perish in battle. They know the risks, but still do their duty for the people._

 _And now my dear Frodo, is where I come in. For quite by chance, and the will of a Wizard, fate decided I would become part of this tale. And for one other, fate took the form of a fortunate accident where she ended up here of all places, at the right time._

 _This is how Fifteen set out to return to their homelands, slay a dragon, and go on a completely unexpected journey for one poor unprepared Hobbit…_

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 _"Oh no, not again you idiotic Dolt!"_ Those words echoed in Ruby's brain as the last thing she heard before feeling like she was being sucked down an extremely tight drain and blacked out. Upon reflection, Ruby would admit what had led up to that moment was probably was one of the dumbest things she had done. Well, she would once she woke up. And _if_ it were completely her fault. Which it totally wasn't… much.

Some indefinable time later, she groaned as consciousness came to her. _Well that was stupid. Why do I have to be the one sensitive to that stuff?_ She heard the chirping of birds overhead, which was a vast difference from the background humming of the electronics in Beacon. Ruby opened her eyes and immediately raised her hand and squinted from the sunlight going through the trees into her pupils. She could feel grass and dirt under her where she lay, and the smell of fresh air wafted through her nose. _How… did I get outside? I was inside._ Really _inside. The Dust storage and refilling wing is_ underground _to begin with. Did I make that big of an explosion?_

Her eyes fully adjusting, she could see trees around and above her. The sun was in the middle of noon and sunset by the shadows. She slowly sat up and looked around. Trees and grassy hills everywhere. _I guess I can rule out 'giant explosion' then; this would have been a giant crater, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't thrown by that explosion… and I'm not going to go all Nora and think of some crazy conspiracy theory or what not._ She felt a strap next to her and looked, giving a small cheer as she saw her school bag. She had brought down into the Dust shop, carrying her magazines to reload. And speaking of reloading…

"Oh thank Oum I still have my Sweetheart," Ruby gasped in relief, feeling the familiar form and weight of Crescent Rose on her back hip holster. She stood up and brushed off her leggings and skirt, then looked around again. The trees were unfamiliar to her, but she wasn't a botanist- _that's the correct word right?_ \- so that wasn't saying much. But what drove home the severity of her situation was when she looked up and could see the moon. It was in a sliver crescent, just visible in the daylight. That in itself was fine, if a little unusual. The fact that the moon was _whole_ and _unbroken_ wasn't. "Oooookay? Definitely not at Beacon anymore," Ruby said to herself. _Maybe even not on Remnant then. Just what did that Dust explosion do? Where am I?_

"I would say that you are not," an aged man's voice answered her from behind. Ruby spun around and froze in surprise, since she hadn't heard or seen anyone approach. She was even more surprised by the man's appearance.

He looked old, as his face had the wrinkles and age marks to prove it. A long, grey scraggly beard came down from his chin with bushy eyebrows in addition to that. He had a pointy grey hat and grey-layered robes, and he was holding a wooden staff that had an intricate carving at the top. He was looking at her with some amusement and curiosity. All in all, Ruby had to admit that he definitely had the quintessential storybook wizard look down to a tee.

The man continued speaking to her, "In fact, to my knowledge there isn't a place called Beacon, unless you are referring to the ones that span Ered Nimrais, in which case you are most certainly far from home."

"Uhh, no?" Ruby shrugged, confused as well. "I guess you have the far from home part down though."

"I thought as such," the man admitted. Ruby regarded him, getting the same mysterious cryptic vibe Professor Ozpin gave during her conversations with him. Especially when the man seemed to be staring directly at her eyes. Not _into_ them, but _at_ them.

"Uhh, hello?" Ruby greeted somewhat properly.

"Greetings," the man replied, breaking the stare, now just curious about her.

"Um, not to sound rude or anything but… who… are you?" Ruby asked, hesitantly, not wanting to annoy him.

"I am known by many names, but you may call me Gandalf the Grey," the man replied, this time definitely sounding amused.

"Oh… are you a wizard?" She asked tentatively.

"I am, one of five to be precise," Gandalf replied.

"Okay… Oh! I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose," Ruby introduced herself, giving a small smile. _No need to be impolite._ "And uhh, I don't really have a fancy title. I guess you could say 'huntress-in-training' but that's a little bit of a mouthful."

"Indeed," Gandalf replied, and after a momentary pause continued. "I must admit I find myself curious as to why a young girl is wandering in the woods of Hobbiton by herself, even if these lands are relatively safe from danger."

"Heh, funny story actually," Ruby smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her head _. For some reason, just like Ozpin, I feel like I can trust him… even though I just met him._

"Oh? I do enjoy a good story," Gandalf said, intrigued. "Perhaps we should find a more suitable place to continue."

"Sure," Ruby agreed. She followed him a short distance away until they found a fallen moss covered tree that they sat on.

"Now then, I believe you were about to tell me how you found yourself here?" Gandalf prompted.

"Right! Well, I was at school, in the Dust shop refilling my ammo because we just got back from the breach, well it was actually the next day, but anyway, there I was, just finished when I saw Weiss, who's my partner, down there. I was curious what she was doing so I went over to her and- uhh, I startled her. Which was probably one of the dumber things I've done."

 _"Whatcha' doin' Weiss?"_

 _"Gahh! Ruby!"_

Gandalf looked pleasantly bemused as she was talking. "While I know many outcomes of surprise, I fail to see how that got you here."

"Ahh, well, you see, Weiss was holding a vial of Dust when I snuck up on her, and it went everywhere… and then…" Ruby mumbled the last bit.

"What was that dear?" Gandalf asked.

"I-uhh… sneezed." Ruby said, her face as red as her cloak.

 _Weiss spun around with several vials of Dust in her hand, unluckily all open. A rainbow of Dust flew up in the air and mixed together._

 _And then Ruby sniffed._

 _"Ah-ah-ah…!"_

 _"Oh no, not again…!"_

Gandalf blinked in surprise, then a small smile started growing. "Indeed?" _Okay, yeah, he's definitely laughing on the inside._

"It's not my fault I'm sensitive to raw powder Dust!" Ruby protested. "Anyway, when I… sneezed, it set off some sort of chain reaction with the rest of the Dust… then there was this portal, rift, thingy and I blacked out, then I woke up in that clearing. And then you found me." Ruby finished her abridged tale.

Gandalf leaned back in consideration, then reached into his cloak and pulled out a wooden pipe and lit it. _Strange, he didn't use a lighter or a match. Guess he is a wizard._ After he took a couple of puffs and made a smoke ring he said, "That might have to be one of the most interesting tales told so casually I've ever heard."

Ruby shrugged, unabashed. Gandalf continued. "Now I have two questions for you, before I go on. First; is this Dust you speak of some form of magic and two; is there anything different about the land you are in?"

Ruby thought about her answer. "Well, I'm not an expert on Dust, that'll be Weiss, but I guess in a way it is magic. It comes from the land… And… about the land… you might think I'm crazy, but the moon's whole. I know that the moon is shattered… so… yeah." Ruby trailed off.

Gandalf hummed for a bit, looking at her. Ruby had the feeling that she was being x-rayed (not the character from Jaune's comics) by him. He then nodded, coming to a decision. "What drew me to you was the sudden wave of magic that I felt from that clearing-"

"So you are a wizard!" Ruby exclaimed, then blushed red, realizing she interrupted. "Sorry."

Gandalf had a smile on his face as he continued, "that felt different than anything that I had felt save for ancient magics. This dust you use is probably the reason. Do you know the name of this land?" He asked, changing the subject slightly.

Ruby shook her head. "I have a feeling I'd be wrong if I said Remnant?" Ruby asked on a hunch, one that she didn't know if she wanted to be true or not.

"You would be correct in that assumption," Gandalf said, avoiding the verbal confusion that sentence could have made. "You are now in Arda, Middle Earth, specifically just South of Hobbiton in the Shire."

"Ooookay, yeah, none of those names mean anything to me," Ruby admitted. "So… what then?"

"It is my tentative belief that you have traveled from a different Realm," Gandalf dropped the bombshell on her.

"Wait… I'm in a completely different _world_ now?" Ruby asked disbelievingly. _Well, I suppose that isn't too disbelievable, since he's never heard of Dust and the friggin moon is whole…_ "I don't know if that's exciting or terrifying."

"You would be surprised at how often those two things coincide," Gandalf admitted. "I think it'll be however you want it to be, good or bad."

 _Huh, I suppose that's one way of looking at it,_ Ruby thought. "So how do I get back home?" _Yang is probably going crazy right now… Weiss is probably switching back and forth between worry and irritation,_ Ruby could almost hear her ranting, _and Blake is trying to get everyone to see things objectively but is secretly worried as well. Oh geeze._

Gandalf did the equivalent of a shrug, "I don't know. That type of magical power is beyond what I can do, or even all the wizards together. Only the Valar could possibly accomplish something of that magnitude."

"Oh. So… where could I find them?" Ruby asked.

Gandalf smiled sadly. "I'm afraid Miss Rose, that that is quite impossible. The Valar are our gods, and reside in a far off land and have very rarely interfered with our affairs, and only in the most dire of circumstances."

"Oh." Ruby muttered, subdued. _Well that's a problem if the only ones that could help me are mythical beings._ "I guess I'm stuck then." She sighed.

"There's always hope," Gandalf said. "Just because _I've_ never heard of this 'Dust' before doesn't mean that it doesn't exist here and someone else knows."

Ruby perked up a bit. "Yeah! I could go out and find it, then recreate what happened! It might take a while, but I'm sure I could!"

Gandalf frowned. "While I'm sure you could, the wilds are a dangerous place to wander, and the mountains are hazardous as well. Many creatures don't take kindly to human presences, especially one as yourself."

Ruby became serious upon hearing this. "Are there Grimm here too?" _Oh please tell me there aren't. That would just be the topping on the cake… mmm, cake… no, focus Ruby!_

Gandalf shook his head. "Grimm?" He asked questioningly.

"Well, the Creatures of Grimm are soulless and Auraless creatures that just want to wipe out humans and Faunus both. If it weren't for Dust then we would have been wiped out long ago. They're usually black with glowing red eyes and white boney plates with red designs on them, and are attracted by negative emotions," Ruby described, giving a textbook answer.

Gandalf shook his head again, "No, there are no such creatures as that, but there are others that serve the darkness that are just as deadly."

Ruby nodded in understanding. "Huh. Well in any case I can take care of myself, as long as I have my sweetheart here," Ruby said as she patted Crescent Rose on her back.

Gandalf raised an eyebrow. "Sweetheart?"

Ruby grinned and jumped off the log, pulling out and triggering her weapon with an _shwish-chick clank clunk,_ did a little twirl, then embedded the tip in the ground. Gandalf was startled and almost lost his balance recoiling. He blinked several times in surprise. "Is… is that a scythe?" He asked.

 _Whoa, deja-vu much?_ Ruby smirked. "It's also a customizable high-impact sniper rifle."

Gandalf blinked again. "A what?"

"It's also a gun," she echoed the previous conversation with hilarity.

Gandalf still looked confused. "Gun?"

This time, it was Ruby that blinked and her humor dimmed a bit. _They don't know what a gun is… Has this Middle Earth not gotten to firearms yet?_ "It's, ah, like a crossbow, but shoots a lot faster, further, and stronger."

Gandalf looked at it in surprise and intense curiosity now. "Indeed? How did you- where did it come from?"

"Oh, I pulled it out of it's storage," Ruby said as she triggered it again to fold up on itself with the mechanical shifting sound, then held it up for Gandalf to inspect like a kid holding up a piece of art they made for their parents.

His bushy eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. "And why would you have such a weapon?"

"Well, I'm a Huntress in training, so it's natural…" _Wait, he probably doesn't know what a Huntress is._ "Oh, so basically we go and train to kill the Grimm on- _in_ my world. That's what Hunters and Huntresses do for a living; protect the people from the Grimm and kill them."

Gandalf hummed to himself, thinking heavily, then nodded, deciding on something. Ruby saw the calculating look in his eyes before it turned warmer. "Well, you've told your story, it seems fitting that I tell you mine." Ruby retook her seat on the tree. "Currently I'm looking for others to gather in a company for a quest."

"Ooh, what kind of quest?" Ruby questioned.

"A quest to reclaim a home and gold from a dragon," Gandalf replied.

Ruby's eyes grew big. "Dragons exist here?"

"For as much trouble as they cause, unfortunately yes."

"So you're trying to kill it and get back your gold?"

"Well, it's not _my_ gold, I don't have much use for it. It's my companion's though and in the end it may come to killing the beast. The dragon, Smaug, hasn't moved in years from his lair, the Lonely Mountain, which used to be a great Dwarven kingdom and a mine rich with gems and metals of all sorts and make. After Smaug raised the mountain, the Dwarves that lived there have been wandering, homeless. Now, there are a few who are looking to take back their homeland."

"I want to join!" Ruby exclaimed excitedly. _A quest like the ones in the stories! Traveling, having all sorts of adventures, kill a dragon at the end and get the gold back… and maybe I can find Dust there. That's usually how the stories go._

Gandalf seemed taken aback by her eagerness. "Why? To be perfectly blunt it doesn't concern you and you haven't even been offered anything in return if you want to join."

"Well, for one, it's the right thing to do," Ruby said. "If they don't have a home, then they should get theirs back. And since you said it's a mine, they may have found Dust there. Also," Ruby added with a smirk, "I recognize the beginning of a recruitment offer." _Ozpin and several other teachers have the same set-up._ "You were going to ask me to join eventually, right?"

Gandalf had a dumbfounded look on his face before he started chuckling which built up into a full blown laugh. "You are a remarkable individual Miss Ruby Rose," he commented once he calmed down. "Admittedly the thought had crossed my mind when you described what you do… Yes. Very well. If you want to come with us, then I won't stop you. However," he said, changing tone, getting her attention, "some of our other companions may have some objection to your volunteering."

"Eh, I can deal with it." _Having Weiss as a partner for those first few weeks can get me through anything people can say._ "When the time comes I'll just let my weapon and skills do the talking."

Gandalf made an amused grunting sound. "Very well. You'll have to convince them to let you join. In fact, I was on my way to meet them before this detour."

"Okay then," Ruby said as she hopped off the log. "Let's go meet them." Gandalf nodded and slid off the tree, then started walking away, making sure Ruby was following.

"So, where are we exactly? Do you have a map or something that I can look at?"

"Not at the moment, but I'm sure there will be maps for you to look at," Gandalf answered. "As for where, we are in the Shire, home of the Hobbits, about 300 miles west of the Misty Mountains. Over 600 to the Lonely Mountain."

Ruby's eyes grew wide at the amount of miles. _That's about halfway to Vacuo on foot. That's how far we need to go? Hoo-boy, that's not going to be a simple walk._ She put the concept of the vast distance aside and thought back to something Gandalf said. "Hobbits? What are Hobbits?"

"Halflings, commonly about three-and-a-half feet tall. They populate this part of the land and care for it. They're a curious bunch, and have many hidden and useful talents. One of them will be playing host for us later and may join the quest as our burglar."

Ruby frowned. "Why would we need a burglar?"

Gandalf seemed to realize that he said something he shouldn't have. "Ah, huh hum… that, will be discussed later."

Ruby fell silent and just enjoyed the scenery. _This has it's own beauty like Forever Fall, but… strangely more natural. More earthy. And apparently I don't have to worry about Grimm attacks. Well, I like it here already._ The sunlight was about to dip over the horizon when Ruby heard merry voices chatting away. When they came closer she saw a peculiar sight.

All of the… people in front of her were shorter than she was but had the appearance of grown men. All eight of them had some sort of beard and moustache combo that would give Port a run for his money, and all were equipped with various armor and weapons, mainly axes and thick swords for the most part. _Okay… definitely the stereotypical Dwarves._

One of them with red hair (it was more orange than anything) noticed their approach. "Hey look! It's Gandalf!" He announced and the other Dwarves turned to look.

"Ah Gandalf, we were wondering when you were going to reappear," another said who was wearing an interesting hat, and had a black moustache and beard. "We were confused as to where we were supposed to go."

"Forgive me, but I got sidetracked. However, it was not without benefits. I managed to enlist another person for the quest, and I think her skills will be quite invaluable," Gandalf said, motioning to Ruby beside him. "This is Ruby Rose. Ruby, allow me to present Oin, Gloin, Dori, Nori, Ori, Bifur, Bofur, and Bombur." Gandalf pointed them out by name but Ruby couldn't keep up and promptly forgot all of their names and the faces they went to.

Ruby was suddenly under the scrutiny of the eight Dwarves. "Uhh, hello?" Ruby said/greeted. There was silence.

One of the Dwarfs spoke up, who was carrying an axe, "No disrespect lassie, but I don' think yer right for the job… unless this be the burglar yer talkin' about Gandalf?"

"No she's not, but she has fighting experience against evil creatures, and against a dragon she might have the best chance of killing it out of all of us."

"Um, sure," Ruby said. _Okay, I wouldn't go_ that _far. Depends on the size of the dragon._ "I guess."

"How old are you?" A Dwarf said, who had his brown hair in three bunches.

"Fifteen, almost sixteen," Ruby answered.

That answer caused the Dwarves to mutter amongst themselves. "Yep, that settles it. You're too young to fight, even by man's standards," another white/grey haired Dwarf said, who was carrying a bolas.

"Hey, I can fight," Ruby protested.

"With what?" The orange haired Dwarf asked.

"With this," Ruby said and swung Crescent Rose out with its mechanical shifting noise, then planting the point in the ground again with a heavy _thunk_. This caused the Dwarves to fall silent in surprise, both from seeing a huge weapon appear out of nowhere behind her back where it couldn't possibly be hidden, and seeing a _fifteen year old girl_ with said weapon.

Gandalf was smirking to himself as he said, "Trust me when I say I have found someone else that can help you, just as you did when I said I found a burglar. Ruby from what she told me has experience hunting dangerous creatures and would provide one more blade."

The Dwarves bunched together and whispered amongst each other again, then the one with the hat said, "Maybe a practical demonstration before things are finalized?"

Gandalf and Ruby shared a glance and Ruby shrugged. _Okay how do I do this? I don't exactly want to hurt anyone… oh that would work!_ She walked over to a good, thick tree and brought back Crescent Rose, then swung with a lot of force behind it. There was a swish and a thud, then a creaking as the trunk of the tree, along with everything above the cut toppled over. Ruby had to resist shouting 'timber!' as the tree fell. There was a loud thud and the cracking of breaking branches, then the tree settled down. Ruby collapsed her sweetheart and then turned to look at the Dwarves.

Once again they all had shocked expressions on their faces, blinking several times. Finally one of them, one who had some sort of thing he was holding up to his ear said, "Yep. She'll do." All at once they started talking, trying to say or converse with her.

Ruby took a couple steps back to try to put some space between them, but they surrounded her. _Okay, that's a little too close._ She crouched then jumped, activating her semblance so she could get some distance to jump over them. She knew from experience that it would have looked like she just vanished in a whiff of rose petals, but that was fine. _A little showing off never hurt anyone… except when I tried to solo that Deathstalker during initiation… Yeahhhh, not doing that again._

She adjusted her angle of descent and landed outside of the ring of confused Dwarves, all of them silent again. "Uhmm?" She got their attention and almost laughed when they turned around wide eyed. "Maybe we could… do the thing Gandalf wants to do and go to that one place? We could talk on the way," she added to appease them.

"Ruby's right," Gandalf said, recovering first and taking the attention off of her thankfully. "We have a little ways to go and I'm sure you all want something to fill your bellies-" As soon as he said that, both Ruby and the largest (see: fattest) Dwarves' stomachs growled. Ruby felt her face go red a bit and she smiled sheepishly. Gandalf just gave her an amused look before continuing. "So, follow me. By the way, where are the others?"

"Oh they went ahead. Still don't know where Thorin is though," the dwarf with white-grey hair said.

"Typical," Gandalf grumbled to himself. The group made their way up the road, the Dwarves chatting amongst themselves. Ruby felt slightly out of place and stuck close to Gandalf, and not just because she was for once one of the taller people in the group. _I still don't understand how I got here because of a Dust explosion. I never heard of something like this before… Generally there's just a big crater where such a thing happened. How worried is the rest of my team?_

"Hey Lass, how'd ya do that rose disappearin ' trick?" The orange bearded one asked, suddenly drawing her from her contemplation.

"Huh? Oh, that's my Semblance; I can go like 'bazeww', really fast," Ruby explained, throwing in the hand motion of shooting forward. "What's yours?"

The blank stare that she received confirmed something that she had somewhat suspected before. "Soooo, I'm guessing you don't have Aura either?"

"'Fraid not."

"Oh." Ruby said. _Just one other difference from Remnant to this world then._ "Well, from where I'm from, I attend a school to train and fight monsters." She now realized she had the Dwarves' attention, so she decided to roll with it. "Everyone has a Semblance, which is a way your soul manifests itself, and Aura, which helps and protects you, like a shield… just around your body. Actually it's more like armor," she realized aloud.

"So this Aura and Semblance thing is what let's you swing that scythe around?" The Dwarf with the tri-hair thing asked.

"Yep. Well with lots of training with my uncle. Everyone's Semblance is different though. My sister has one where if she gets hit, she hits back harder. And she spontaneously combusts from time to time. But she's fine." Ruby wouldn't admit it aloud, but she was starting to enjoy the dumbfounded looks she would get when she said something like that.

They continued to ask questions and Ruby would respond as best she could. She didn't exactly want to say she was from a different world all together, and just said she was from far away. Thankfully the Dwarves didn't pry and were more interested in her skills, which she described as best as she could.

The group made their way through a nice green and lush landscape, which had houses in the hills. They were small houses though… and Ruby could tell why. There were a few people out and they were shorter than even the Dwarves. _Oh, so those must be Hobbits. Wow they're short. They look like children… but adult. Wow that's confusing. At least the Dwarves are a little more straightforward…_ She broke off that train of thought before it could go any lower and focused on seeing what she could see.

The entire countryside was growing with plants and flowers, and although it was dark, Ruby could tell it was beautiful. _I don't I've seen anything like this back home. Like Forever Fall, anything this pretty usually has Grimm crawling over it, and the safest places are inside the cities where parks are about as close as we get to this. As much as I want to go home, I'll enjoy this while I can. And the air is so fresh!_

Gandalf led them up to the top of a hill, where there was another Hobbit home that had a tree on top of it. "And this is it," Gandalf said and pointed to the door. There was a glowing blue mark on it that Ruby thought looked like a stylized tree.

"Well then, let's go," one of the Dwarves said and opened up the front gate. All eight Dwarves went to the front door and someone rang the doorbell. Ruby and Gandalf stayed close to the back.

"So, why are we here again?" Ruby asked.

"To get our burglar, and to gather everyone to begin."

"Ah." Ruby could hear some shouting from inside.

 _"There's nobody home!"_ The voice sounded angry. _"Go away and bother somebody else. There's far too many Dwarves in my dining room as it is."_

Ruby snorted. "Soooo… was he asked like me or was he drafted without knowing it?" Ruby asked, amused at the person's shouting. _Reminds me of when Nora's on one of her rants, just before she gets distracted and completely forgets what she was ranting about._

"The second one," Gandalf answered. "Incredibly amusing for me." Just then the door opened and one of the Dwarves was leaning against it when it opened. He started to fall backwards, and grabbed somebody else, not helping either in the slightest. That one grabbed another and it was like watching a pile of dominos fall over, or more like when somebody bumps Blake's bookcase. They all sprawled out in the doorway of the Hobbit's home in a dog pile.

Ruby laughed at the Dwarves insulting each other, then she looked up and saw a Hobbit in the hall. He was short, like the other Hobbits she had seen, and had brown curly hair, and looked like he was almost in his sleepwear with a quilted robe covering himself. Ruby also noticed that his feet were bare and were extremely hairy.

"Gandalf," the Hobbit stated in exasperation, as if he were to blame for all his troubles (as he rightfully was).

The Dwarves started picking themselves off of the ground and introducing themselves.

"Bofur,"

"Gloin,"

"Ori,"

"Nori,"

"Dori,"

"Oin,"

"Bombur,"

"Bifur"

"At your service!" They all finished at the same time.

"Ah-ha! There's the rest of you!" A tall Dwarf (an oxymoron if Ruby ever knew one) with the top of his head bald, came in. "Come, we're getting supper ready, come join us!"

"Dwalin!" Bofur? greeted, (Ruby thought that was his name) and they all went further inside, brushing past the Hobbit. The ruckus from further in suddenly got upped up twelve notches.

Gandalf entered himself and had to practically bend over all the way to get inside the door. Ruby followed his lead and only had to duck her head slightly. Gandalf gave a mischievous smile to the Hobbit and a wink to Ruby before going further inside to the growing chaos.

"Uhh," Ruby started, "if it makes you feel better I'll try to be quieter than them." The Hobbit turned to glance at her.

"It doesn't actually," he said, frustration evident in his voice. The frown he had seemed to want to become permanent as well

"Sorry." Ruby shrugged. "Anyway, I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose," she held out her hand.

The Hobbit still had enough manners about him to shake it and introduce himself, "Bilbo Baggins." He paused. "You're not a Dwarf are you?"

"Nope, I'm a human. I'm just with them and Gandalf," Ruby answered.

Bilbo studied her for a moment, then said, "You have remarkable silver eyes."

"Oh, um, thank you?" _Well at least that wasn't as awkward as Ozpin's…_

Bilbo seemed to realize that he may have said something a bit uncomfortable and then said, "Sorry, um, would you like me to take your coat?"

"No, that's fine, thank you. But you don't happen to know where the weapons are put though?" _I don't particularly want to be carrying my sweetheart around in somebody's house._

Bilbo blinked in surprise. "Umm, just right over there is fine," he pointed to a small closet that had the other's weapons in it.

"Alright, thanks." Ruby unhooked Crescent Rose from its holster and placed it with the others, earning a strange look at the weapon from Bilbo. She also placed her Beacon bag along side it. There was a sudden loud noise from the kitchen that got their attention. "I think you should go see what they're doing." Ruby advised him worriedly.

"Right you are," Bilbo said, then rushed further into his house. Ruby took her time, not really eager to join in the chaos even though she was hungry.

 _We_ are _sorta raiding his kitchen… and I don't think he knew we were coming from his shouting and… irritation with us._ Ruby walked around the house, only really needing to lower her head in a few places. The Hobbit house/dwelling was homely, nothing really overly decorative or fancy. There were some paintings and portraits of who were most likely family members, and there were, thankfully, some maps.

Ruby took a closer look and saw that this one was apparently the area they were in at the moment, and it showed all the lands around the Shire. Hobbiton, Westfarthing, and other areas were on the map _. But this is only a local map,_ Ruby noticed as she saw the scale, only in the tens of miles, rather than fifties or hundreds. _Middle Earth is a lot larger than this._

Not seeing any other maps, Ruby moved on to the dining room and immediately needed to squeeze against the wall to not get hit by the fattest Dwarf… who was also carrying at least three wheels of cheese. _That's a… a lot of cheese,_ Ruby thought in slight awe. She heard someone say that he ate it by the block and thought, _Oh dear. No wonder he's so fat… he's fatter than a Boarbatusk!_

When she was fully inside the dining room, one of the Dwarves caught her attention and said, "Hey, Ruby, was it? Mind helping setting the table for all of us?"

"Huh? Oh sure, I'd love to help," Ruby answered.

"Great," the Dwarf with the hat… Bofur? said, and then immediately handed her a stack of plates. "Here you go!" Then he immediately went to do something else. Ruby was a bit miffed, but started putting plates down around the table, avoiding the others as they too moved about the now cramped room. She noticed that Gandalf had stepped out, making the room seem a little less crowded.

Some of the Dwarves were eating as they worked. Pieces of meat and bread were passed around, and Ruby couldn't help but snatch some of the food as it passed by. As a plate passed by, Ruby made a decision. _Well I have to get to know these Dwarves' names at some point. Might as well start with him._ "Um, excuse me?"

"Yes Lass? Who might you be?" Said the Dwarf, who had white hair and appeared older than the others.

"Oh, I'm Ruby. Ruby Rose. I guess you weren't with the others when they came then?"

"Nay, I was a tad early. The name's Balin, at your service." Balin said with a slight bow.

"I'm just a little nervous," Ruby admitted, "since I'm in an unfamiliar land and don't… exactly know what this quest is about."

Balin gave her his full attention. "How did you get involved in this?"

"Well, Gandalf found me and thought that I could help with the dragon, and I wanted to help… so here I am." _And that's excluding the series of events that led up to me being in this world._

"Hmm, well if Gandalf thought it would be alright, then I for one will not argue against him. Glad to have you," Balin decided.

"Glad to be here," Ruby replied _. Though I would like to be back home though, but this journey seems like the way to go about doing that._

"Oi, Balin, budge over a wee bit," the Dwarf with the orange hair and beard said, carrying a chair. Unfortunately the chair almost got stuck in Ruby's cloak and she alarmedly got it free from the chair leg.

"Hey, watch it!" Ruby said, trying to be stern, but knew she couldn't really pull off the look.

"Sorry," he said, not sounding very sorry, and put the chair down.

"That'll be Gloin, my cousin," Balin said. "A little gruff, but has a big heart."

Ruby nodded, listening. Then she had an idea. "Would you mind terribly telling me about each of them? I-uhh- need to put names to faces."

"Ah, no shame in that Lassie. I'll do what I can." Balin said forgivingly.

"Thank you."

* * *

Dinner, and Ruby used the term loosely, was chaotic. _It's like we're trying to eat while having a food fight… not that crazy one we had with JNPR though. And it's entertaining in a way,_ she thought as Bofur tossed something to Bombur and the… shapely Dwarf caught it in his mouth. Ruby got caught up in the moment and cheered with the Dwarves as if they had just won a tournament. The food was delicious, if a tad heavy on the spices with a lot of meat, bread, and vegetables being served. Food was being literally tossed around so they all had something of everything.

Fili (Ruby knew their names at least thanks to Balin, who had moved to the other side of the table) started walking on the table handing out ale. For a moment, Ruby was tempted, but remembered the warnings and the dangers of alcohol from dad and her uncle (which was ironic) and refused to touch the mug that was set in front of her.

"Oh, what's the matter Ruby? Haven't had ale before?" Kili asked next to her.

"Uh, no, I haven't. I think my sister _may_ have, but I'm not sure. My Uncle Qrow though always has a flask on him though… I haven't had any."

"Well, now's your chance," he said excitedly, both of them ducking under Oin's spray of ale. The mug was shoved in her hand and Bofur shouted, "Ale on the count of three!"

 _Oh._

 _Oh no._

"One, two,"

 _No no no._

"Up!" Kili shouted, a mischievous smile on his face as he grabbed Ruby's mug, her hand still attached for some reason, and raised it up to her mouth.

 _Oh crap._

The ale went down her throat and she could feel it suddenly pool in her stomach, like when you drink uncomfortably warm water that's been left out in the sun and heat. It wasn't like anything she expected… but it wasn't exactly pleasant either and got the mug away from her with a slight coughing fit. It left a strange aftertaste in her mouth and she made to grab something to eat when she noticed something.

It was silent.

Not absolutely though, but it was a vast decrease from the volume of before. All the Dwarves were drinking their ale, and some (most) of them were spilling it all over themselves as they tilted the mugs too far _. Okay, that's disgusting… and wasteful,_ Ruby thought. She saw that Gandalf was looking at them as well, seeming to be waiting, or bracing himself.

Nori was the first to break the silence with a loud belch, then Ori followed with an extremely long one. _That was both impressive and disgusting at the same time._ Ruby almost laughed out loud at a sudden thought. _Weiss wouldn't be caught dead eating with these guys. She'd either storm out or burst a blood vein in her head… probably both. The order would be up for a coin toss._ They still hadn't solved the debate of what happens when you flip a coin three times. Ruby had lost interest in that as she got confused.

Ruby felt a little queasy and could feel the little bit of ale she had sloshing around in her stomach with the rest of her food. The other Dwarves tried their own belches and Ruby had to stand up and leave. She found Bilbo just outside the dining room looking like he was contemplating the best place to hide the bodies. "Uh, Mr. Baggins? Could you tell me where the bathroom is?" Ruby asked nerviously.

Bilbo seemed to deflate a bit seeing that she wasn't a Dwarf and said, "Main hallway, three doors down on the left."

"Thank you," Ruby said and followed his advice. A few minutes later after taking care of business, Ruby stepped out of the bathroom, only to find a line of Dwarves waiting.

"Ah, was wondering who was in there," Dwalin said and then brushed past her and closed the door. Ruby was a bit perturbed by the near bald Dwarf, and decided not to stick around, considering the sound she was hearing from behind the door. _Oh Dust that's disgusting._

Ruby wandered around the house a bit before returning to the kitchen, where the Dwarves were actually starting to clean up a bit.

"Hey Ruby, grab that plate will ya?" Kili said.

"Sure," Ruby replied as she put it on the growing stack to be cleaned. There was almost a rhythm going as they cleaned, the pounding the dishes and mugs made as they were cleaned, plus several of the Dwarves were intentionally making the beat.

She was distracted when Bilbo rounded the corner getting more and more frustrated. Ruby could tell whatever Gandalf was saying to him wasn't helping as Bilbo finally said, "I don't want to get used to them. Look at the state of my kitchen! There's mud trod into the carpet. They-they've pillaged the pantry! I'm not even going to tell you what they've done to the bathroom, they've all but destroyed the plumbing." _Oh god, I did not need to hear that… guess it's a good thing I used it before them then…_ "I don't understand what they're doing in my house!"

There was a break in the 'conversation' then Ruby turned to look and suddenly had to dodge a plate that was thrown by Kili and caught by Bifur, who was cleaning off the plates, without looking. More plates started coming in, the Dwarven brothers treating the plates like a football* **(OG: or soccer if you prefer)** and kicked them around before getting them inside the kitchen. Ruby had to agree with Bilbo that it looked dangerous and they could break at any moment.

 _Then again…_ Ruby thought as she took a second look, _they are being surprisingly… well, not_ gentle _, but careful with them. The angle and force they're hitting them is precisely right as to not damage them. They… do know what they're doing apparently,_ Ruby had to admit.

The beat started to increase and become more coordinated and synchronized. The Dwarves used the utensils and their feet to make different sounds. "And could you not do that?" Bilbo admonished the Dwarves as he was trying to stop them from their work. "You'll blunt them."

"Oooh, Do you hear that lads? He says we'll blunt the knives," Bofur said mockingly.

Kili started singing, _~"Blunt the knives, bend the forks,"~_

 _~"Smash the bottles and burn the corks,"~_ Fili chimed in.

 _~"Chip the glasses and crack the plaaaates,_

 _~"That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!"~_ All the Dwarves started singing, with a couple of them pulling out instruments to start playing along. Despite herself, Ruby had to smile at the spontaneity of it all. As they were singing, they all started cleaning up in earnest with the dishes stacking up to be washed.

 _~"Cut the cloth, tread on the fat_

 _Leave the bones on the bedroom mat,_

 _Pour the milk on the pantry flooooooor!"~_

Ruby got caught up in their clean up and was using a bit of her Aura to make sure everything went where it was supposed to. _I'm having a lot of fun right now,_ she decided. Plates and bowls were rolling across the table and flying through the air, _almost as if Pyrrha's using her Semblance and the plates were metal._

 _~"Splash the wine on every door,_

 _Dump the crocks in a boiling bowl,_

 _Pound them up with a thumping pole,_

 _When you're finished, if they are whollllle,_

 _Send them down the hall to roll,_

 _That's what Bilbo Baggins hates!"~_ The Dwarves finished up their song and Ruby had even joined in on the last verse, even though she felt sorry for the heart attack they must have given the poor Hobbit. Bilbo himself pushed his way through the Dwarves and saw the nice neat stacks of clean dishes and mugs they had made.

"Not so bad if I say so myself," Ruby said to him as all the Dwarves laughed in merriment. Bilbo just gave her a blank disbelieving stare that made Ruby laugh a little bit.

As if a switch had been thrown, all laughter ceased when there was a solid thumping on the door. There was a moments pause before Gandalf said, "He is here." Gandalf then got up from his chair to the front door.

"Uh, who's here?" Ruby asked, suddenly feeling like the outsider again.

"Thorin," Balin said, then all the Dwarves got up to follow Gandalf. Ruby took the slightly longer route so she could be in the opening hall, but before she got there she heard a new voice.

"Gandalf. I thought you said this place would be easy to find. I lost my way, twice. I wouldn't have found it at all had it not been for that mark on the door." Ruby got to where she wanted to be and saw another Dwarf come in. He had long black hair that could have given Blake a run for its money and a nicely trimmed goatee. Ruby could tell there was a different aura (lower case) around him that separated him from the other Dwarves.

Bilbo shimmied his way through the Dwarves blocking the hallway. "Mark? There's no mark on that door, it was painted a week ago!"

"There is a mark, I put it there myself," Gandalf admitted, closing the door in question. He turned around and then made eye contact with Ruby, then gestured to both Bilbo and Ruby. "Bilbo Baggins, Ruby Rose, allow me to introduce the leader of our company: Thorin Oakenshield."

Thorin had looked at Bilbo when the Hobbit's name was called, but when her own was, he turned around and made direct eye contact. "I didn't know we were getting an extra member. And a young human girl at that," Thorin said, taking a second look at her.

"It was sorta' last minute?" Ruby said/asked. _Stupid, why did that come out as a question?_

"And what do you think you can add to our quest?" Thorin asked/interrogated.

"Well, I can fight really well," Ruby answered. _All right, I can tell he doesn't like me already. He doesn't even know me yet._

Thorin had a skeptical look on his face. "Well then, since you claim to be a fighter, what's your weapon of choice? Ax or sword? Or a sewing needle?" He asked mockingly, although nobody laughed since the majority of the people there had seen what she could do. It was a tense moment for everyone to see how she would react.

"Actually a scythe," Ruby replied, holding down her ire, and earning a surprised look from Thorin.

"An unusual weapon, one I've never thought or seen as a weapon before" he seemed hesitant to admit that. "But do you have the skill and strength to use it?"

Ruby looked him straight in the eyes and answered, "Yes. I've been training for years and have the strength to back up that claim."

"It's true," Nori said. "She chopped a tree down in one swing." The other Dwarves that were there nodded in agreement.

Ruby was pleased when a gleam of surprise and a little bit of consideration came into Thorin's eyes. "And where is your scythe? I happen to notice that you don't have it with you."

"Right there," Ruby said, pointing to the red weapon visible in the closet.

"That doesn't look like a scythe to me," Thorin said, the doubt heavy in his voice.

"It transforms into a scythe," Ruby said, suddenly grateful for the other Dwarves nodding.

"Aye," Gloin said, "some sort of magic in the metal lets it do that."

Thorin was silent, thinking for a long minute before he said, "I will not ask you to come with us, and will admit I do not want you to come as I have doubts about your so-called skill." _Oh gee, might as well say that all I'm good for is cooking and making clothes._ Ruby huffed a bit, frowning in her growing irritation. "But if you choose to, then that'll be your decision."

"I'll get another contract written up in a jiffy," Balin said.

Thorin just grunted and then remembered the owner of the house they were in. He turned around and looked Bilbo up and down. "So… this is the Hobbit I've heard about. Tell me, Mr. Baggins, what experience of fighting do you have?"

"Pardon me?" Bilbo seemed confused at that question.

"What's _your_ weapon of choice?" Thorin continued. "What invaluable skill do you have?"

"Well, I do have some skill at conkers, if you must know… but I fail to see why that's relevant," Bilbo said.

"Thought as much," Thorin said dryly. "He looks more like a grocer than a burglar." He earned some chuckles this time. He walked further inside and the other Dwarves followed him. Ruby, Bilbo, and Gandalf were the only ones left, and Ruby saw Gandalf give a silent sigh in exasperation.

"I'm sorry about him," Gandalf apologized. "He always has lacked a certain tact to cushion his words."

Ruby sighed and shrugged. "Not the first time I've met someone like that." _Early Weiss counts right?_

"I'll just be glad when they leave," Bilbo grumbled. The trio followed the Dwarves who had cleared the table of the dishes and returned to their seats. Refills of ale were passed out, and Thorin sat down at the head of the table, with a little meal in front of him. Gandalf sat to his left, while Bilbo still lingered on the edges again. Ruby crept in and sat further down the table on one of the open seats. The Dwarves seemed to finish their greetings with Thorin and there was a momentary lull.

"So, what news from the meeting in Ered Luin? Did they all come?" Balin asked as they all got situated, two long pieces of paper in front of him, one of them full, the other only slightly filled out, but he was working on that with a quill.

"Aye, envoys from all seven kingdoms," Thorin answered, eating a bit of his stew. The Dwarves seemed happy with that and gave little exclamations of satisfaction.

"And what did the Dwarves of the Iron Hills say?" Dwalin asked next. "Is Dain with us?"

Thorin sighed and slouched a bit. "They will not come." _They? Other Dwarves? Why wouldn't they come?_ The Dwarves were disappointed with this news as Thorin continued; "They say this quest is ours and ours alone."

"You're… going on a quest?" Bilbo asked, finally making his way in. _Oh, I suppose he doesn't exactly know yet,_ Ruby thought. _On second thought, neither do I. Or not all of it anyway._

Gandalf seemed to remember Bilbo was there and said, "Bilbo, my dear fellow, let me shed a little more light on the subject." He reached into his robe and brought out a map that he spread out on the table. "Far to the East, over ranges and rivers, beyond woodlands and wastelands, lies a single, solitary peak." Ruby herself got up and took a peak over Dwalin's shoulder.

"'The Lonely Mountain,'" Bilbo read off the map.

"Aye, Oin has read the portents, and the portents say it is time," Gloin stated.

"Ravens have been seen flying back to the mountain as it was foretold," Oin said. "'When the birds of yore return to Erebor, the reign of the beast will end.'" He recited. Ruby was distracted a bit when Gandalf needed to shake his hand to get rid of a fire… that had no source. She mentally shrugged. _Oh well, my Sis literally catches on fire. Plus there was that woman when I fought Torchwick the first time._

"Uh, what beast?" Bilbo said, now sounding understandably tense.

"Well that would be a reference to Smaug the Terrible," Bofur explained, "chiefest and greatest calamity of our age."

"Airborne fire-breather," somebody added.

"Teeth like razors, claws like meat hooks," Bofur continued "Extremely fond of precious metals."

"Yes I know what a dragon is," Bilbo interrupted, not amused.

Ori stood up suddenly and proclaimed, "I'm not afraid! I'm up for it! I'll give him a taste of Dwarfish iron right up his jacksie!" The Dwarves were amused at his spirit, but Dori dragged him down before he could make more of a fool of himself.

"The task would be difficult enough with an army behind us, but we number just thirteen. Fourteen if Miss Rose joins us. And we may not have the best, nor brightest amongst us."

Ruby snorted slightly at the implied insult while the other Dwarves realized what it was. Eventually Fili spoke up. "We may be few in number but we're fighters, all of us, to the last Dwarf!"

Kili took the reigns, "And you forget we have a Wizard in our company! Gandalf will have killed hundreds of dragons in his time."

Gandalf started in surprise and started to protest modestly, "Oh, well, no, I wouldn't say I-"

"How many then?" Dori asked then.

"What?" Ruby almost laughed at that.

"Well how many dragons have you killed?" Gandalf remained silent and started coughing from the smoke. "Go on, give us a number!"

At that all of the Dwarves got up and started yelling at each other for seemingly no reason. Bilbo tried to calm them down but they ignored him. Then Thorin shouted something that Ruby couldn't understand and the Dwarves immediately fell silent.

Thorin stood. "If we have read these signs do you not think others have read them too? Rumors have begun to spread. The dragon, Smaug, has not been seen for 60 years. Eyes look east to the mountain, assessing, wondering, weighing the risk. Perhaps the vast wealth of our people now lies unprotected. Do we sit back while others claim what is rightfully ours? Or do we seize this chance to take back Erebor?" Thorin cried out, drawing cheers from the Dwarves. Ruby herself almost wanted to leap out right that moment.

Balin tried to bring them back down to reality. "You forget; the Front Gate is sealed. There is no way into the mountain."

"That, my dear Balin," Gandalf interjected, "is not entirely true." He suddenly had an ornate key in his hand that he twirled around for them to see.

Thorin looked awed at the key. "How came you by this?"

"It was given to me by your father. By Thrain, for safekeeping. It is yours now," Gandalf said, handing the key over to the Dwarven leader.

"If there is a key, there must be a door," Fili reasoned.

Gandalf used his pipe to point to the map, "These runes speak of a hidden passage to the Lower Halls."

"So there's another way in, that we can sneak in through," Ruby said aloud, reminding them that she was still there.

"Well, that is if we can find it," Gandalf said. "Dwarf doors are invisible when closed."

"Oh." Ruby muttered.

"The answer lies hidden somewhere in this map and I do not have the skill to find it. But there are others in Middle-Earth who can. The task I have in mind will require a great deal of stealth, and no small amount of courage. But if we are careful and clever, I believe that it can be done."

"That's why we need a burglar!" Ori exclaimed.

"Hmm, and a good one too. An expert I'd imagine." Bilbo commented, missing the meaning.

Gloin pointedly asked, "And are you?"

Bilbo looked up and then behind him as if Gloin was talking to someone behind him. "Am I what?"

"He said he's an expert. Heh-hey!" Oin laughed with his ear thingy in his ear.

"Me?! No. No, no, no! I'm not a burglar. I've never stolen a thing in my life," Bilbo protested.

"Well I'm afraid I have to agree with Mr. Baggins," Balin grumbled. "He's hardly burglar material."

"Aye the Wild is no place for gentle folk who can neither fight nor fend for themselves," Dwalin said.

"So what about you Ms. Rose? Could you be stealthy enough for this?" Nori then asked.

Ruby blinked, suddenly in the spotlight. "Ah, well, I mean, I probably could," she stuttered, "but I'm hardly burglar material. I'm more of a fighter, like 'swish-swish-slice'. Now if my teammate Blake were here…" she trailed off. _Blake could get in and out before anyone would notice she was gone. She's good like that._

"So where's he?" Gloin challenged.

Ruby frowned sadly. " _She's_ not here. I'm by myself."

"And that just brings up the question why exactly are you here on your lonesome? Where do you hail from?" Kili asked.

"We hardly know anything about you save for that giant scythe you can carry around like nothing," Nori said. "You said you came from far away; exactly how far?"

"And why do you choose to fight? And why are you so young?"

"Just exactly how did you do that petal disappearing trick?"

The questions suddenly started pouring in like a burst dam, and then degraded from there as the Dwarves once again started arguing and shouting amongst themselves. Ruby looked from one Dwarf to another, unable to answer any questions if and when they were directed at her. _Ah! This is too much! I'm suddenly reconsidering being a part of this!_

A tingle went up Ruby's spine, and she felt something; the kind of feeling she only got when there were Grimm trying to surround her. " _Enough_!" Came a thunderous voice that Ruby recognized as Gandalf's. His shadow seemed to grow and expand in the room, pressing on everyone, forcing them to be silent. "Ruby Rose is not our burglar, and if I say Bilbo Baggins _is_ , then a burglar he is!" The shadow regressed and Gandalf calmed down. "Hobbits are naturally stealthy, being remarkably light on their feet. In fact, they can pass unseen by most, if they choose. And while the dragon is accustomed to the smell of Dwarf and man," Gandalf gave a nod to Ruby, "the scent of a Hobbit is all but unknown to him which gives us a distinct advantage.

"And as for Ruby, she told me that where she comes from she trains to fight monsters that are as vicious as a mountain trolls to protect her land. Her skills are needed in order to survive there, and I believe that she could provide our victory against the dragon if our main plan doesn't work and we are forced to confront him directly." Ruby couldn't help but have a small smile on her face at his words of support.

Gandalf sat down and turned to Thorin. "You asked me to find the fourteenth member of this company and I've chosen Mr. Baggins. And by chance and fate we have a fifteenth member as well. There's a lot more to them, especially for Bilbo, than appearances suggest. And both have a great deal more to offer than any of you know. Including himself," Gandalf added, looking directly at the Hobbit.

Thorin still looked unsure. Gandalf added a little bit more push. "You must trust me on this."

They looked at each other before Thorin said, "Very well. We'll do it your way." Ruby could hear Bilbo weakly protesting that he was being accepted into the company, but everyone was ignoring him. "Give him the contract." Thorin told Balin as the other Dwarves cheered.

"It's just the usual," Balin said, handing him the stack of paper. "Summary of out-of-pocket expenses, time required, remuneration, funeral arrangements, so forth."

"Funeral arrangements?" Bilbo stammered, echoing Ruby's thoughts, as he was handed the paper. After a moment he stepped out and unfolded it, the paper going down almost to the floor. Ruby could hear his groan of despair. It's one she heard many times from herself, such as when a large essay paper was due soon.

"Now for you Ms. Rose," Balin said, "I haven't finished writing your copy yet, but yours will be the same. I've even included the adjusted share, now one-fifteenth of the total profit. There'll be a few changes, but nothing stopping it from being legitimate."

"Oh, okay, I wasn't really expecting a contract though. I guess I'll take it then…" she trailed off as she heard Bilbo muttering aloud what he was reading.

"…lacerations… evisceration?... Incineration?!" He asked to clarify.

"Oh aye, he'll melt the flesh off your bones in the blink of an eye." Bofur agreed.

"Well that's encouraging," Ruby muttered sarcastically. Bilbo whimpered off to the side.

"You all right laddie?" Balin asked.

"Huh? Yeah." Bilbo said distractedly, taking shallow breaths. "Feel a bit faint." _Oh that's not good,_ Ruby thought.

"Think furnace with wings," Bofur continued.

"Air. I-I-I need air." _Oh boy._

"Flash of light, searing pain, then poof. You're nothing more than a pile of ash."

 _Okay, now_ I'm _feeling a bit faint_. "Not helping," Ruby said to the Dwarf.

Ruby saw that Bilbo was going to faint and started to move over to him. "Nope." Bilbo decided, and then started falling. Ruby used a bit of her semblance to catch him before his head hit the floor, rose petals appearing again. She slowly laid him on the ground, then turned around to Bofur.

"And was that supposed to reassure him?" She questioned accusingly.

Bofur just shrugged, "Just telling him what to expect."

Bilbo stirred and groaned a bit, waking up again. "Whoa, take it easy there," Ruby said, going back to his side, slowly helping him up.

"I feel like I was just struck by lightning," Bilbo muttered. He slowly sat up and then stumbled his way into another room. Gandalf followed him, bringing a cup of tea with him. Ruby sighed.

"Were you trying to scare him off?" Ruby asked.

"He should know what's expected of him," Thorin countered. "If he truly wants to do this, then he will. If he doesn't, then we've lost nothing and will continue regardless."

Ruby frowned. "I thought you needed a burglar?"

Thorin glared at her, almost forcing her back a step, but she stood her ground. "A burglar would have been just one means to an end. A welcome one, but something we can work around."

They entered a staring contest before Thorin stood up and walked away, making Ruby huff. _Why is he treating Bilbo like a disposable asset? I mean, sure Bilbo isn't the person I would feel like I would want with me as a burglar, but that wouldn't mean I'd talk about him like that. But I don't think he'd come with us anyway…_

She was proven right when she saw Bilbo walk away with a tired, but steadfast look on his face, clearly showing he was uninterested. "It appears we have lost our burglar," she heard Balin say to Thorin. "Probably for the best. The odds were always against us. After all, what are we? Merchants, miners… tinkers, toy-makers." He chuckled. "Hardly the stuff of legend."

"There are a few warriors amongst us," Thorin countered, giving a sly look at Balin. Ruby wandered a little closer to them.

" _Old_ warriors," Balin emphasized.

"I would take each and every one of these Dwarves over an army from the Iron Hills. For when I called upon them, they answered. Loyalty, honor, a willing heart. I can ask no more than that," Thorin said. That brought a small smile to Ruby's face.

"You don't have to do this," Balin tried to persuade Thorin. "You have a choice. You've done honorably by our people. You have built a new life for us in the Blue Mountains. A life of peace and plenty. A life that is worth more than all the gold in Erebor."

"From my grandfather to my father, this has come to me," Thorin held up the key. "They dreamt of a day when the Dwarves of Erebor would reclaim their homeland. There is no choice Balin. Not for me."

"And we are with you laddie." Balin promised after a moment. "We will see it done." They then noticed Ruby was there.

They looked at each other for a while before Ruby spoke, "I-I know that I'm a stranger to you, but I do want to help you. Not because of any reward or gold, but because it's the right thing to do."

Thorin was silent for a moment before he said, "That's very honorable of you Ruby Rose. A tad naïve, but honorable nonetheless. If you truly have the skill to fight, then I will accept you on our quest."

Ruby gave a smile. "Thank you." Thorin said nothing in return, but walked to the main room, leaving Ruby and Balin behind.

"You are a brave lass Ms. Rose," Balin said. "Not many would willingly help us without greed or selfish reasons."

Ruby gave a sheepish look. "I am sorta' doing it for myself a bit," she admitted. "I wasn't lying when I said I was far from home, but I don't know how to get back to my own worl- land," Ruby changed the word midsentence. "I'm hoping there's a way back somewhere at the Lonely Mountain."

Balin looked confused, but accepted her explanation. "I do hope you find your way to return home. But until then, I too welcome you. That reminds me," Balin said suddenly, "I still need to finish your contract. Probably won't be done until tomorrow, but I can get most of it done tonight."

"That's fine," Ruby said, then remembered Bilbo. "So what's gonna happen if Bilbo doesn't come?"

Balin sighed. "We'll have to change our plan accordingly. Our best bet would have been to sneak in and somehow kill the beast in its sleep."

Ruby grimaced. _I've heard of stories where Hunter teams would try to catch Grimm unaware in an ambush, especially elder Grimm. It never goes well._ "I don't think that would work well." _I guess Bilbo has an important part of this after all, but he's not interested… It would be interesting for him to come. The more the merrier… But how would he be interested?_

"Do you think Bilbo will come?" Ruby asked.

Balin sighed, "I don't know. I would hope that he does though."

That decided it for Ruby. She nodded. "I hope so too." She walked past Balin and went to the closet where her bag was. _Thankfully it still has my school stuff in here. Hopefully there's… paper! And a pen! Good._ She took a look at the notebook. _Eeh, Grimm studies. I can afford to take a page out of this._ She ripped a piece of paper out of the back and grabbed a pen, then went to the dining table and started writing.

 _To Bilbo:_

 _First off, I'd like to thank you for your hospitality (unwilling as it may have been) and at least letting us meet here. You had no obligation to do so, yet you at least tolerated us for the evening._

 _Now for the serious part. I understand that you may not want to join for… reasons. And frankly, if I were a different person, I would be exactly like you. Wanting to stay at home with the things and people I feel comfortable around. But I'm not. I'm a Huntress, or at least in-training, meaning that it's my job (and dream) to protect the people of my Kingdom and fight monsters and basically make the world a better place. My mom and dad were/are a Huntresses and Hunters, and my mom, Summer, died doing her job. But I still wanted to be a Huntress, because I want to help people._

 _And these Dwarves… for their flaws, need our help. I know that you feel that you won't be able to give any at all, but you never know until you try. I was complete garbage before my uncle taught me everything I know and then some. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you could stay, but you'll never know what you've missed if you do. The Dwarves may never get back their mountain, and there'll still be a dragon flying around. Sometimes, the most insignificant people can change the world; can become heroes._

 _I think you have that potential. I want you to at least think about signing the contract and coming with us. Who knows? Maybe you'll actually have a good time._

 _Hope to see you with us,_

 _-Ruby Rose_

Ruby added a little sketch of her symbol next to her name and then folded up the letter and placed it on the table _. I hope that changes his mind._

She sighed and leaned back in a chair before hearing the last strains of a song ending from the main room. Curious she got up and went to the doorway. "What next?" Someone asked.

Thorin stared into the fire for a while before saying, "The Song of the Lonely Mountain." The other Dwarves nodded and shifted around a bit.

Feeling the urge to get this, Ruby took out her Scroll and turned on the camera to video setting and hit 'record'. Just in time too before the Dwarves started humming. Then Thorin started singing.

 _~"Far over the Misty Mountains cold,_

 _To dungeons deep, and caverns old,_

 _We must away, 'ere break of day,_

 _To find our long forgotten gold."~_

Other Dwarves started singing as well.

 _~"The pines were roaring along the height,_

 _The winds were moaning in the night,_

 _The fire was red, it flaming spread;_

 _The trees like torches blazed with light…_

 _Far away from Misty Mountains cold"~_

Ruby got the chills when they were singing, but kept the camera steady until they were finished, then hit 'stop' and put away her Scroll. _I'll have to show the team that when I get back._

There was a moment of silence before Thorin roused himself and turned to the Dwarves. "The hour is late. We must go back to the inn to be ready for tomorrow. Miss Rose, do you have a place to stay?"

Ruby shook herself. "Uh, no I don't actually," she shrugged apologetically.

"No matter, we have enough coin to rent another room for a night."

Ruby breathed out, relieved that a problem had been solved before she knew it was a problem. "Thank you."

"Come. I would thank our Hobbit, but I have a feeling he isn't our Hobbit right now," Thorin said dryly. The Dwarves stood up and made their way to their gear, putting it back on and then going out the door. Ruby grabbed Crescent Rose and put it back in its holster and walked out the door was well, taking one last look around Bilbo's home.

 _I hope you do come with us, Bilbo Baggins._

* * *

 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

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 **Ruby: Really Galen? Another Dust accident where I get sent to another world?**

 **Galen: Well I mean... convenient plot device?**

 **R: Ugh, whatever. At least it's not that Stark Contrast alternate Remnant.**

 **G: Very true. You're in Middle-Earth/New Zealand, what more do you want?**

 **R: Yep! Maybe you should explain a bit more of what you want to accomplish with this story for the readers. Hi guys and girls and robots! *Waving at the screen***

 **G: Okay, I can do that. *Turns to readers* Hello everybody, this is OrangeGalen with a brand new story! I actually had this idea late last March (timestamp: 2015), but never did anything with it until recently. Basically I restarted this when Volume 3 of RWBY came out and now have the first chapter done! Also, the cover was my first project with the drawing program I got at christmas, so I had to write this.**  
 **This is a long term project so updates will be sporadic and infrequent, though not like On The Road, Far From Home once every year infrequent. **

**I want to have fun with this, and while I am a huge Tolkien nerd/intellectual, I'm not going to go as deep into the backgrounds, languages, and mythos as some may want (myself included) if I ever actually want to complete this story.**

 **Basically, I want to have a mesh of the Peter Jackson movies (unextended) and the book that works, since the Hobbit movies were no LoTR. There's a couple questions you may have that I'll have Ruby head off right now so you don't clog up the reviews. She knows what's going to happen. Take it away Red.**

 **R: Please don't call me that. Anyway! So, first off, yes I know I'm a little OP for Middle-Earth-**

 **G: Try _a lot_. And sorry by the way. **

**R: Hey, I'm talking! Anyway, so since I'm OP there will be instances that will be a little too easy for our company since I'm there, but Galen will try to... suppress that a bit as much as possible. I'm not going to be able to shoot every orc or troll I see all willy-nilly since I only have a limited ammo supply.**

 **Next, since Dust is basically magic, and Middle Earth has magic, Dust works there. I know that the further away from Remnant you get, Dust weakens accordingly, but outer space doesn't have magic. Middle Earth does. And because Galen decided Dust still works. And I'm glad otherwise my rounds would be dead weight.**

 **As for pairings, _ugh_ *shudders*, there won't be any, thankfully. Well, except for Kili and Tauriel like in the movie version. So don't ask Galen to put any in since he will resist it.**

 **G: Besides, you still need to get back to Weiss-waifu.**

 **R: *Deploys Crescent Rose* What was that?**

 **G: Nothing! Nothing at all!**

 **R: Humph. Lastly, this _will_ be the fan fiction crossover trope where a character is thrown into another world and goes along with the plot, possibly changing it a bit story. Sorry if you were expecting otherwise, but since there wasn't another one like it for this crossover pair, we call dibs. **

**G: That reminds me: this story was inspired by moviedragon009's The Hobbit and The Snow Queen, a HobbitxFrozen crossover fic. Really awesome, moviedragon did a good job with it, and you should read it after this... which I should end since it's getting a bit long. **

**R: Yeah! I still need to get around to killing Kevin the Dragon Grimm. Wouldn't be the first dragon I've fought. Oh, and this is pre-Volume 3 finale, so spoiler free. 3 day Spoiler Ban until Monday, remember?**

 **G: I'm so not ready for the finale. I'll actually have a reaction video (F*ck you Fine Bros.) up within a few days or so, on my just started (as in like a few hours ago) still empty youtube channel under the same name. My first video!... If I can figure out youtube...**

 **Anyway, we've rambled on long enough. Make sure to Read, Review, Favorite, and Follow this story, and I wouldn't object if you Favorited/Followed me as well.**

 **So until next time**

 **-OrangeGalen**

 **...**

 **R: And Ruby Rose! I'll be here next time as well!**

* * *

Chapter length: 12,877.


	2. What a Huntress Can Do

**I do not own RWBY or any Tolkien related material, and have no claim on either of them. The idea for this story is mine and is purely for fun.**

* * *

 **Warning: Exposition. Lots of exposition. Though we know Tolkien loved it a lot, so it's unavoidable.**

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 **XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX**

* * *

Ruby woke up to her room glowing a soft, happy yellow as the sun tried to shine through the curtains covering her window. She yawned and then stretched, but then remembered the bed she was in was cramped for her when her legs went over the mattress, as it was made for smaller people in mind. _Oh, right. I'm not in Beacon… Remnant even, anymore. I'm in Middle Earth. With Hobbits and Dwarves and Wizards…_ She snorted a bit. _That sounds a bit like those fantasy stories I've read, or that Yang would read to me when I was younger. This time there is a dragon guarding the gold at the end though._

 _And possibly a way home there,_ she thought as she got off the bed and stretched to get the kinks out of her body. Unfortunately for her, she didn't have a ready change of clothing available for her as she wasn't ready to be thrown into a different world (and honestly, who is?) so she needed to sleep in her normal combat attire. Obviously she took off what she could though since she didn't particularly want to be sleeping on her spare clips again. Mountain Glen was a learning experience in that mistake. That was one reason she woke up when Zwei did his thing.

Ruby opened the curtains and blinked when the sun finally rushed in. "Wow, what a beautiful morning," she said aloud in slight awe. The land looked even better than at night, now that she could actually see what it really looked like. The inn they were staying at wasn't very large, and it was only two stories. They had paid to use practically half of it since there were so many of them and they had to rent an extra room for Ruby, as they had the sense of mind not to room with her. Gandalf had left them at some point last night, and Ruby didn't know where he went. _He'll probably turn up sometime before we go._

But back to the outside, the fields were glittering in the morning light, brought about by the morning dew hanging on everything. It was a lush green that she only found in cultured gardens and pictures taken from outside the kingdoms, outside the walls and protections. Patch had a different atmosphere that was closer to this one, as it was wilder and more natural than the city, but still held a little something different so that you could never truly relax. This place definitely had a good feeling though. One could say that it was good for the soul.

Ruby absentmindedly took out her scroll and snapped a picture of the scene. _Though as lovely as this looks, I do want to get back home,_ Ruby thought as she turned away from the window. _Today's when we set off to the Lonely Mountain… Whoa, okay, I'm suddenly realizing I'm under prepared for this journey. It's going to be a long trip and I practically have nothing except school supplies and- oh thank Oum I have my emergency cleaning kit with me,_ she interrupted her own thoughts… It happens. She looked through her bag, pulling out everything… _Only two extra clips, so that's seventy-five bullets I have available. And no way to resupply… Dang it. Oh well, it could always be worse. And I mean that in the ironic 'I actually don't want that to happen' way._

She put on the garments that she had taken off like her cloak and laced her combat boots, getting ready. Ruby thought back to the distance she had to travel and started separating out the items from her bag that she probably would need, and the things that she didn't. Various notebooks and miscellaneous items were the first to go. Ruby knew that they would just be added weight with no practical use (save for kindling), and even with Aura protecting her from chafing it would still be uncomfortable. She kept a few pens and pencils though, and surprisingly she found her journal inside of her bag. _When did I put that in there? Oh, right, Weiss forced us to clean the room a bit and I must have just tossed it in to get it out of the way._

Getting a thought, she opened it up and started writing, basically getting down what happened yesterday and the story leading up to that point. It took up three pages, but it was worth it. Once she was finished, she closed the book just as there was a hefty knock on the door. _"You awake in there, lassie?"_ Came one of the Dwarves' gruff voices.

"Yep!" Ruby responded and went over to the door, revealing Gloin. "We're heading out?" She asked.

"Soon, after breakfast" the dwarf replied. "Balin wants to give you yer contract, and Thorin wants to talk to ya again."

Ruby nodded. "Alright, can do. I'll be down in a moment." Gloin grunted and walked off. Ruby turned around and repacked the stuff and decided to leave the rest of it on the bed with a note that read _'I have no use for these so do what you like with them. -R.R'_ She looked at the pile. _Hopefully I don't cause too much trouble with leaving these here. Though I doubt I need my Grimm studies book._

She slid the backpack over her cloak and then left her room, heading downstairs to where the smell of food was. She found most of the Dwarves loitering around the dining room, some talking, others eating or drinking. Thorin looked up at her colorful entrance and motioned her over. Ruby came over and sat down across from him at the small table. "Good morning," she greeted.

Thorin nodded. "Morning," he said gruffly. _Maybe he's not a morning person?_ Ruby wanted to believe that rather than this was just his normal state of grumpiness. Quickly there was another plate of food that was placed in front of her from a Hobbit server, and after she thanked him she started eating politely, waiting for Thorin to speak further.

"Miss Rose," Thorin said, breaking the silence between the two.

"Uh, yeah? I mean, yes?"

"I want to reaffirm your resolve to accompany us on our quest. While I trust the word of my fellow kinsman and the wizard, you must understand that I still hold reservations about your ability."

Ruby sighed. _He won't let this go now will he?_ "I do want to go with you. For one: it's the right thing to do, and another, there may be a way for me to go back to my home. And as for my ability… well, you may think I'm small and helpless, but when the time comes, you'll see what a Huntress can do," Ruby said with a smirk. _Quoting song lyrics is a guilty pleasure of mine._

Thorin grunted, then said, "If you're resolute then. Balin!" He shouted to call the Dwarf over.

The white haired Dwarf came over with a long paper, the one that he was working on last night. "Finished it up this mornin'. Standard pay, usual hazards, the normal for this sort of thing."

Ruby gave it a glance over. _Reminds me a bit of the formal mission parameters Uncle Qrow gets from the Kingdom… or now that I think about it, Weiss' family's company, when they give him one._ Ruby looked inside her bag and brought out a pen, only to see that Balin had offered her a quill with ink on it. "Oh, uh, thank you," Ruby said awkwardly, quickly putting away the pen in her pocket and taking the offered instrument. She signed her name, wincing internally at the inkblots she made, but it was legible. _-Ruby Rose._

Balin took it and looked at her signature, then said, "Welcome to the company."

Ruby smiled in return. Balin then asked a question. "If I may, what was that device you pulled out just then?"

"Oh this?" Ruby pulled out the pen and clicked it. "It's a pen. It, uh, has the ink inside of it." With movements she had perfected through repetition while being bored in class, she unscrewed it and showed him the ink cartridge.

Balin took it and examined it. "Fascinating. Is this a unique item where you're from?"

"No actually, it's quite common." Ruby took it back and screwed the pen together and stowed it away in her bag.

"That's another thing," Thorin spoke again, "where do you exactly hail from? I don't believe I caught the name of your home."

"Uhh… that's a long story," Ruby tried to stall to come up with a good answer. "I'm from a kingdom called Vale-"

"Dale?" Balin asked, mishearing.

"No, Vale with a 'V'," Ruby corrected, "In a land called Remnant… far, far away…"

"Then how did you come by here?"

"Like I said, long story…" _I guess I should tell them at some point where exactly I'm from… But maybe once we've gotten further on the road… and maybe if Bilbo joins us._ "And I will tell you… just not today since we don't have time. Plus I'd rather not like to repeat myself several times so I'd rather do it with everyone around," Ruby added with an apologetic smile.

Thorin looked at her for a moment before giving a nod and going back to his meal. Balin smiled back at Ruby. "Whatever the case, we could always use more hands and weapons. Whenever you feel the time to do so, just let us know."

"Okay, I'll do that," Ruby agreed and Balin walked off. Thorin nodded and also left, leaving Ruby to eat by herself. After a few minutes she was done and, not knowing what to do, took the plate and utensils back to the counter. She saw there was a pile there already and just placed them with the rest. _Okay, now, to find out if there are any extra supplies I can get._

She walked out of the inn and found the other Dwarves near the stables, and Ruby had to stop and look at the horses. As a young girl, she stereotypically wanted a pony as a birthday or Yuletide gift (granted she wanted to ride it into battle while killing Grimm, but that's not important right now), but on Remnant they were rare. Like herself, others before her had thought to use horses in their wars against the Grimm until the Grimm eventually started hunting them, learning what they were to humans, unlike other animals that they normally left alone. They weren't extinct, but they were getting there, and efforts were being made to save them.

So understandably, seeing this many of the equestrian animals had Ruby a little dumbstruck and awed. "Wow."

Her little comment caught the attention of Fili, who was making sure the horses, or closer to ponies, were ready, and turned to her. "What do you need Miss Rose? You're coming with us right?" He asked.

"Yeahp," Ruby answered, popping the 'p'. "I came down here to ask if there was an extra sleeping bag and other supplies, since I don't have anything for a long journey."

"Oh yeah, sure. There should be an extra bag or two somewhere," Fili said and started going through the packs. His brother Kili, and three other Dwarves came in and started to get their packs together and on their horses.

"Here," Fili said and tossed a bed roll at her, which she gracefully caught and then started tying it to the bottom of her backpack using the straps provided for something like this very reason. "Thanks!" _It's a little bulkier than my sleeping bag, but oh well. What's that saying, beggars can't be picky?_ She stood up and tested the backpack's weight, and it wasn't that much heavier than before.

Thankfully for her, there wasn't much more that the Dwarves gave her since most of the baggage was on one pony save for other things the Dwarves kept themselves, like personal bags.

It was around this time that Gandalf reappeared on his own horse. "Ah, there you are Gandalf!" Nori exclaimed. "We were beginning to wonder where you were since we're almost ready to depart."

"And I arrived precisely when I meant to," Gandalf replied as he dismounted and walked over, staff in hand. He looked around, "Where's Thorin?"

"Right here," the Dwarf said as he just now walked up to them, Balin and Dwalin at his side.

"Ah, good," Gandalf nodded. "Now then, our course is set, we just need to wait for Mr. Baggins to arrive-"

"No." Thorin said, interrupting Gandalf. "I won't wait for someone who may or may not come, especially if the person in question wasn't willing to join us in the first place."

Gandalf seemed taken aback at that but recovered quickly enough. "Be that as it may, I have full confidence that Mr. Baggins will come with us. I'll even bet on that outcome." That got the Dwarves' attention.

"I'll wager that he doesn't come," Gloin said.

"I'll put ten coins on that he does," Ori countered. Soon enough all the Dwarves were making wagers on if Bilbo was going to come with them.

Eventually Ruby had to chime in. "Well, I don't have any money, but I'll put part of my reward on Bilbo coming," she said. _I don't think they'll take Lien… even if I had any,_ Ruby thought as she had spent the last of her monthly allowance on her custom ammunition. _Plus, I think my letter to him should convince him to come, so the odds are stacked in my favor._

Most of the Dwarves had bet that Bilbo wouldn't come, with a few exceptions of them not betting, such as Thorin and Dwalin. Gandalf shrugged, "Well, if he does come, then everything for the better then."

" _If_ he comes. Otherwise coming here would have been a waste of time… partly," Thorin said, glancing at Ruby, then went over to one of the horses and jumped on. "Is everything ready?" He called out.

"Aye!" The Dwarves answered in the affirmative, and with that Thorin shouted something in another language that Ruby couldn't understand. The Dwarves scrambled to their ponies and hopped on; Bombur needing to have help to get onto his, and the pony immediately protested the weight. Ruby got onto a nice sable pony after making sure her cloak wasn't being stuck under anything, but then realized something very important. _I have no idea how to horse. Heck, I don't even know how to drive! I'm not old enough. And one of them has a mind of it's own!_ She looked over to one of the Dwarves and noticed how he got his pony to move.

 _Okay, I can do this,_ Ruby thought to herself. _It's not like I'm trying to get it to do tricks or anything,_ she rationalized. She copied Bifur and thankfully the pony seemed to get what she wanted to do and it moved forward, following the others ahead of it. _I think I can get the basics with the reigns…_

She found herself closer to the back of the group as they made their way down the dirt road. Ruby's head was on a swivel trying to look at the scenery. _It's so nice and green! And the air even feels alive!_ The group attracted a number of stares from the local Hobbits as they admittedly made quite a sight for the otherwise quiet community. But they soon went back to what they were doing, putting the odd sight out of mind.

 _I wonder if this would be how it would be if we didn't have to worry about the Grimm,_ Ruby thought, finally placing the feeling that she'd been getting from everything. _It's the feeling of nothing to worry about: no dark clouds hanging over them, no immediate threat lurking behind city walls. It's… freedom, no worries. It's so different than back home…_

"So then Ruby." A voice startled her out of her thoughts and she jumped a bit on her horse. She turned and saw that Gandalf had fallen back a bit to talk with her.

"Wha- oh, morning!~" Ruby greeted, getting over her surprise.

"Good morning," Gandalf repeated. "How was your first night here?"

"It was fine," Ruby nodded. "Excited to be here though. This is going to be an adventure! I can't wait to see what's going to happen."

Gandalf had an amused look on his face. "And what of returning to your home? Have you given any thought to that?"

Ruby shook her head. "Nope actually. If I gambled, then I'd bet I'd find something at the Lonely Mountain to help me, maybe some Dust." _Usually that's what happens in the story, though we still need to get through the dragon at the end._

Gandalf made a humming sound. "You truly are a remarkable person Ruby." _Okay…?_ "So then, are your going to tell your tale to the Dwarves, of your being from Remnant?"

Ruby thought for a moment. _I will have to tell them. It's never good to keep secrets from the people you're with; I'm looking, or rather thinking of you Blake. It never works out in the end._ She nodded, "Yeah, I will. Maybe later tonight or something. I just don't know how they'll take it," she admitted.

"There may be some surprise at first, and distrust, _since they are Dwarves_ ," Gandalf added in a conspiratorial whisper, "but I think that they'll accept that and move on, getting to know you for you."

Ruby smiled and said, "I hope so." Gandalf nodded in return and moved up to the front of their caravan. They continued on for a few more minutes and the Dwarves started grumbling about having to come here in the first place before they heard someone shouting from behind them.

 _"Wait! Waaait!"_

Thorin called for a halt and they turned to see who it was. Ruby couldn't help the smile that formed as she saw Bilbo with a pack on running after them waving the contract around in his hand.

 _Oh, wait, how do I stop?_ Ruby had a momentary panic before she just pulled on the reigns, thankfully making the pony halt. Bilbo finally caught up to them and held up the contract. "I signed it!" He said breathlessly, then handed it to Balin for inspection.

Balin took a look at it and said, "Everything appears to be in order. Welcome Master Baggins to the company of Thorin Oakenshield." The Dwarves chuckled good-heartedly and Ruby gave a light applause.

Thorin however wasn't as amused and just ordered, "Give him a pony."

That got Bilbo's attention and he tried to protest that it wasn't necessary, and rambled that he could just keep up with them on foot before the Dwarven brothers picked him up off of the ground and plopped him on their second baggage pony. He hesitantly took the reigns, looking severely uncomfortable. "Oh, okay, no, this is fine, thank you. I'm sure I could, ah, get used to this!... This won't be a long trip right? A week at most right?"

Ruby chuckled and moved up next to him. "It's not all that bad. This is my first time as well," she gestured to the pony.

"I'll have you know that Hobbits like to stay firmly on the ground, thank you very much," Bilbo said. "And I can only blame you for this. Or partially at any rate."

"Me?" Ruby was taken aback for a moment at the vinegar before she remembered. "Oh, so you read my letter then?" She smirked a bit, amused at his disgruntlement

"Yes, and I have a feeling I'll be wishing that I was back at home with a fire and a kettle going many times during this thing, quest," Bilbo bemoaned, as to which Ruby giggled again. They continued on for a minute or two, enough time for Gandalf to move back to them as well.

Eventually, Oin called out, "Come on Nori, pay up!" The Dwarf in question tossed a sack of, presumably, coins at the Dwarf, who caught it.

Kili chimed in, "One more!" Another bag was tossed, and quickly bags were flying around.

"Hey, Ruby, how much did you bet again?" Dori called out.

"Uhh, I don't have any money on me, so I bet part of my share, though it's fine, you don't need to give me anyt-" Ruby cut off as she snatched a small bag out of the air.

"Bah, good call. This'll last you for a while," the Dwarf said, and then paid no attention to her again.

 _Well okay, I have some money now…_ Ruby looked inside the bag and saw there were a couple gold and silver coins inside. _I wonder it this is the real metal. Vale and the other kingdoms also used metal for currency before Lien. I could sell it when I get back,_ she chuckled to herself as she put it inside her pack.

Gandalf was explaining what all the betting was about to Bilbo and the Hobbit asked, "And what did you think?"

Gandalf waited a moment. "Well…" He then caught a bag that was headed towards him and tossed it a bit. "My dear fellow, I never doubted you for a second."

Bilbo seemed mollified at that and then turned back to Ruby. "And you also thought I woul-woul-" He broke off and sneezed.

"Bless you," Ruby said automatically.

"Ah, it's horse hair. Having a reaction," Bilbo said, looking around in his pockets.

"Oh…" _No wonder why he didn't want to get on a horse,_ Ruby reasoned.

Bilbo groaned as he couldn't find what he was looking for. "Wait, wait, stop! Stop! We have to turn around," Bilbo called out. Everyone halted, mainly out of curiosity of what was causing his aggravation. Ruby once again fumbled with the reigns before getting her pony to stop.

"What on earth is the matter?" Gandalf asked exasperatedly.

"I forgot my handkerchief."

Ruby blinked and tried to hold back a snort at the absurdity of it. Bofur however, provided a… unique solution. "Here!" He ripped a piece of clothing off and tossed the rag back to the Hobbit. "Use this." Now Ruby did laugh, both at the solution and the look of disgust on Bilbo's face as he held the rag.

After the Dwarves had a laugh, Thorin called, "Move on," ignoring Bilbo.

They started going on again and Gandalf started talking to Bilbo, "You'll have to manage without pocket handkerchiefs and a good many other things, Bilbo Baggins, before we reach our journey's end. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home will soon be behind you. The world is ahead. Comfort will be scarce, but there will be many wonders to behold on the road that will make up for that. So enjoy this time."

Bilbo looked unconvinced and stated so. "Sometimes I wonder if you're trying to secretly dissuade me from this."

"You'll be fine," Ruby reassured him. "We'll look out for you." _Or at least I and Gandalf will… Gandalf and I,_ Ruby mentally corrected, hearing imaginary Weiss in her head berating her about proper grammar.

Time passed and the Dwarves spent their time merrily, singing songs and telling stories, and they only stopped when it was time to eat. Ruby was glad that they took breaks as her legs were getting saddle sore and needed to walk around quite a bit to readjust to normal. They passed through grasslands and small woods, sometimes going up and down small canyons made by streams going through them. The entire time they were traveling Ruby strangely hadn't been asked any questions, and was only involved in small talk.

Though there was one time when Oin asked her what it was like in her land and she replied that it was better if everyone could hear her story at once. He nodded and then (basically) ignored her, making her feel left out, much like Bilbo seemed to be, though he was in a better mood than before, or hiding it better.

Eventually they stopped at the edge of Hobbit lands at a small inn as the daylight was dying and they rented rooms again, Ruby paying for her own once she was educated on what the coins were worth and how the amounts worked out. Unfortunately there wasn't an opportunity for her to tell her own story as the Dwarves split up immediately after eating for their rooms. Gandalf gave her a knowing look and she shrugged and hid under her hood from the stare.

The second and several following days were much like the first with Ruby unfortunately not having the right or opportune time to tell her story, or rather all of it.

She had discovered that her Scroll's battery life was slowly dying, as she was taking pictures every so often, and she turned off most of the functions like the phone and Wi-Fi capabilities to save power. Thankfully the Dust that powered her Scroll could go quite a bit before needing to be recharged, and the battery even longer, as she had the Huntress brand which was made to last long periods of time for Hunters in the Grimmlands. She was sitting at around 82% battery life presently.

 _I really want to make this last,_ Ruby thought as she discreetly put away her Scroll after taking another picture of their journey. _But on the other hand, I want to keep taking pictures and videos when I want._ She had been keeping up with her journal and she had found out on the third day that the calendar was about the same, but it was May here instead of September.

It was on the fourth day when she had been talking with the Dwarves about their metalwork that her opportunity came. She was thankful they finally had a common interest in weapons and struck up a conversation. She had begun talking with them about different ways of forging metal and she made a comment about how she used the special burn Dust they had to fuel the forges at Signal to make the blade for her sweetheart.

"Your what?" Kili asked, as he was part of the conversation.

"Oh, Crescent Rose, my scythe," she answered as she stood up (they were taking a much needed break from riding) and brought out her sniper scythe. Once again the Dwarves and one Hobbit jumped back at the sudden appearance of such a large weapon, though the ones that had seen it before recovered a little quicker. Bilbo, Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, and the brothers both had wide eyes as Ruby held her scythe.

"How did you do that?" Bilbo ventured a question.

"What? It's just basic Mechashift operating on a larger and more precise ratio of mass-to-area, though mine goes to the third power linear instead of the more common and simpler second, though it would be nice to get it to the fourth multi-planar like Coco's minigun, but that just means more and smaller gears which I really don't nee…d…" she trailed off as she realized she had lost the Dwarves. She smiled sheepishly, "Sorry, I get carried away when talking about weapons. I built this myself," she bragged.

"How?" Dwalin asked. "I've been to many a forge throughout the lands and have never seen anything like this accomplished, not mentioning the fine, precise craftsmanship needed to make that. Nor have I seen anything move like that outside of siege engines."

Ruby opened her mouth, but then shut it, thinking. _Actually, this gives me the perfect opening to tell my story. I guess it's now or never._ Ruby decided to put away her weapon and braced herself. Then she started talking. "Well uh, that actually relates to my tale and where I'm from. And I'd like to share that with you all right now, now that I have an opportunity."

"This should be good," Bofur said, situating himself as did the other Dwarves. She almost flinched when everyone stared at her at once, but Ruby drew upon her inner 'Team Leader' role and continued.

Once they seemed ready, Ruby took a glance over at Gandalf, who gave a reassuring nod. She returned it then took a breath. "I'm not actually from here, or Middle Earth rather. I'm from a kingdom called Vale on… another world named Remnant." _Like a Band-Aid, just rip it off._

Silence. "Now hold on there lass," Gloin finally said. "What do you mean 'another world?'"

"Ah, well, exactly that," Ruby said. "I'm from a completely different world. I looked at the maps of here and none of them are familiar, and where I'm from we've mapped out the world. And there are other things as well."

"Like what?" Bilbo asked, one of the few that seemed like they would give her a chance at explaining.

"Well, for one, the moon for my world is shattered, not whole like the one in the night sky here. Also, there are no Hobbits, or Dwarves, and the only dragons and wizards are in fairy tales."

"That's absurd," Dwalin said, making the other Dwarves scoff in agreement.

"Well that's the truth. The only other kind of people are Faunus, and they have animal features like a tail or extra ears." The Dwarves grumbled again at this, split once again between belief and the disbelief options. Though Bilbo and Gandalf seemed to be paying the most attention.

"So… these… Faunus? they can have, like, cat ears?" Bilbo asked, putting his hands on his head to symbolize extra ears.

Ruby giggled to herself and nodded. "One of my teammates is actually a cat Faunus and has really cute kitty ears." _Too bad she doesn't take off the bow more often. Even in our room she doesn't often. It's kinda sad actually_. Ruby looked around and saw that more Dwarves were doubtful of her than open minded. _What can I do to prove that I'm from a different world… that's a sentence you don't think of every day._

She put her hands down and into her pockets. _What do I have he-_ "Ah, how about this?" She said aloud as she pulled out her scroll. She turned it on and showed them it. _I think I can use battery power for this._

"What's that?" Balin asked, looking lightly awed at the glowing screen, as did the other Dwarves.

"This is a scroll, and I can do a bunch of things with it, but mainly it's a communications device. If a CCT were here I could use it to talk to someone far away as long as they had another one of these. I also can take pictures and videos."

"Vi-dos?" Bombur tried to say.

"Uhh, think of it as a moving picture with sound," Ruby explained as she pressed a couple buttons. "Here. This is from the night we were in Bilbo's house." She hit play and turned up the volume, then showed them the video she took of them singing in Bilbo's house. As it played she was once again treated with the sight of dropped jaws in astonishment.

"How can you do that? Is it magic?" Ori asked.

"Nope," Ruby chirped. "It's technology, the same that allowed me to build Crescent Rose. My Scroll is common in Remnant, and is actually one of the smaller things we can do."

The Dwarves started talking and what started as a murmur gradually grew until they were talking over one another. Ruby couldn't make out anything in the chaos, and Thorin didn't seem eager to stop them. So Ruby decided to go to the extreme side to get their attention. She grabbed Crescent Rose and twirled it like a baton, planting the point in a stone on the ground, cracking it all the way and getting the blade in about five inches deep.

The loud sound and the unexpectedness of such a large weapon appearing so close to them caused the Dwarves to fall silent. "Thank you," Ruby said, a hint of mocking in her voice now. She gave a tug and pulled the blade out of the ground. _I'll have to sharpen my sweetheart pretty soon at this rate._ "Please, if you have questions, ask them _one at a time_.

"I'll relit- reiter- uhh, I'll repeat myself," Ruby gave up on the word she was trying to say, "I _am_ from a different world, and have no clue what is here, but that doesn't mean I'm different than you, and I still want to help you on your quest."

She sat down and looked at the Dwarves' bursting faces. "So… questions?"

It ended up that they needed to get up and move on as they would have taken the whole day asking questions just sitting there. Once past the initial distrust and skepticism, they practically hounded her with questions. She explained what Aura and Semblances were, and demonstrated by running to a distant rock outcropping and back in the span of a few seconds, leaving a trail of rose petals, making some realize the link between her name and her power now.

She explained exactly what sort of weapons they had and used, and went into detail about firearms, which the Dwarves were excited to learn about after she demonstrated on the same rock outcrop and shattered a nicely sized boulder from about a hundred fifty yards away (scared the ponies with the sound and they needed to spend time calming them down, with Ruby apologizing quite a bit). She also told them what sort of buildings and other creations they had. They were shocked to learn that they could fly in 'metal birds' and had 'metal people' to protect them.

But then Fili asked the question, "What do you need protecting from? Sounds like you have it easy." Some of the Dwarves nodded in agreement.

Ruby nodded and explained. "Well, on my world, Humans and Faunus have only Four Kingdoms on the entire planet. Only four major cities. The rest of the world is overrun by the Creatures of Grimm."

"Grimm?" Bilbo asked, who was next to her again as they were riding.

"They're soulless creatures that kill anyone they can. Mainly black with white armored plates that grow with age. The older a Grimm, the stronger, tougher, bigger, and more intelligent they get." _Too bad I left my Grimm Studies notebook back at the Shire, otherwise I'd show them some of the pictures in there._ "Long ago they almost destroyed humanity, but we found Dust and used it to fight them back and make civilizations. And now it's up to the Hunters and Huntresses to kill the Grimm wherever they show up, to become the people on the front lines to confront the darkness. That's what I'm training to become, so I can help people. Plus they're crazy strong and way better than the police…" Ruby trailed off. "Anyway, yeah…" She finished a little lamely.

"That sounds like a tale from the First Age," Nori commented.

"I have no idea what that means so I'm just going to say sure," Ruby nodded.

"It's the beginning age of history for our world, during the time of Beleriand, before it was sundered," Gandalf spoke, adding in his knowledge. "We are currently in the two thousandth, nine hundred and forty first year of the Third Age."

 _Whoa, that's a long time,_ Ruby thought. _It's only 80NVC_ ***1** _back home, and recorded history only goes back another thousand-ish years before the new calendar. I do pay attention to Prof- Doctor Oobleck's class… okay,_ some _attention. I wonder if they could have all that history because they don't have Grimm breathing down their necks?_

"What's this 'Dust' you mentioned?" She broke out of her thoughts at Dori's question.

"Huh? Oh, uhh, Dust is… I guess kind of magic," she said. "They're like magic crystals or powder that has the elements in it. Fire, lightning, energy, almost everything we have is powered by it" _wow, I sound like Weiss now,_ "Nature's Wrath is the more poetic name for it, but without it, we (as in humanity) wouldn't have survived.

"It's also what caused me to end up here," she admitted, "in an accident which _totally_ wasn't my fault. So… that's sorta' the reason why I want to come with you, so I can hopefully find more Dust and get back home."

"So you're also looking to get back to your Kingdom as well," Thorin spoke for the first time in a while. "And you hope to find this Dust in Erebor?"

Ruby nodded and said, "Yep. While this adventure may be fun, there's something about home and family."

"Aye, don't we know it," Balin agreed, the other Dwarves nodding.

"But I do want to get the chance to have some fun here as well. This is almost like a fairy tale back home!" That got some chuckles from the Dwarves and Gandalf.

"Ah, that's the spirit lassie," Balin agreed.

"How could we not have found Dust before?" Nori wondered aloud. "We've mined through most of the mountain and if it were there, we would have found it and used it."

Ruby shrugged. "I don't know. I'm not the specialist of the group, but I think it has something to do with Aura, and Dust reacting to it? I'm not quite sure. Maybe there is and maybe there isn't. We'll find out when we get there." _And I'll know because I have a sensitivity to it… heh… heh… me and my stupid nose…_

* * *

A few days later Ruby's enthusiasm was beginning to wane a tad. It had been a week and a half since she had arrived in Middle Earth and they were apparently not even halfway to the halfway to the halfway to the halfway point, or halfway to the 4th power. They weren't even close to the Misty Mountains that basically divided Middle Earth in half when she saw where they were pointing to on the map they had with them. Though she could see them in the very far distance, like a giant wall against the horizon. And they needed to get over that.

Though she kinda expected and rationalized it a bit, she was still slightly let down when nothing interesting had happened so far. No bandits, no creatures, just lots of admittedly beautiful scenery, and that was starting to become duller and bleaker as they started getting into the 'Lone-lands' and the Dwarves called it. Not that she was complaining, but she was starting to get that itch of missing combat. Or maybe it was just the pony hair on her legs.

There was a different air to this place and Ruby started relating it to being back on Patch, or at least in the heavily wooded areas away from the populated cities and towns on the island. Those were the areas that the Grimm just loved. As they rode along, they passed by ruins of castles and fortresses and they reminded Ruby of the ruins that are in the Emerald Forest… or _were_ there at any rate. Some looked like they were nice places at one time, but others she was glad they were ruins as they looked like they once housed dark denizens in them.

Then came a day where they weren't able to stay in an inn at all as they were deep in the wilds now, and so needed to sleep outside. They had found a nice nook in a rock wall and set up camp, getting a fire and food going. They had a rather hearty meal and eventually set up a watch, Ruby was going later in the night. Some of the Dwarves were still up and others were dead asleep.

 _I'm thankful that I had a separate room in all those inns because that snoring is worse than Yang's on a bad night,_ Ruby thought as she rolled over in her sleeping bag to try and get some shut eye. She heard someone give a huff and then get up, obviously not trying to do the same as her. Ruby sighed herself and tried to drift off, paying more attention to the nightly noises.

Guttural cries in the distance made her give up on that idea and she sat up in surprise. "What was that?" She heard Bilbo ask in wariness.

"Orcs," Kili answered.

"Orcs?" Ruby asked, echoed by Bilbo at the same time. The camp seemed to jerk awake from its slumber and many turned their attention to the distant gloom, trying to see these Orcs.

"Throat-cutters. There'll be dozens of them out there," Fili answered. When Ruby looked at him, he had a nonchalant look as he went back to his pipe. "The lone-lands are crawling with them."

Kili then took over from where his brother left off. "They strike in the wee small hours when everyone's asleep. Quick and quiet, no screams. Just lots of blood." Ruby didn't like the look on their faces and was proven correct in her assumption when they started chuckling at the poor Hobbit's expense.

"You think that's funny?" Thorin spoke, full of ire, cutting off their amusement. "You think a night raid by Orcs is a joke?"

"We didn't mean anything by it," Kili mumbled, quelled.

"No you didn't," Thorin almost spat as he walked to the edge of camp. "You know nothing of the world."

Ruby looked after Thorin. _Where did that come from?_

"Don't mind him, laddie," Balin spoke to the brothers. "Thorin has more cause than most to hate Orcs."

"Sorry, but what exactly are Orcs?" Ruby asked.

"Some say they were Elves once, but were twisted by the Great Enemy," Balin explained. "They're foul creatures who are man-like, and love nothing more than to kill and destroy." _So they're like the Grimm of this world then,_ Ruby drew a parallel to her own world.

"After the dragon took the Lonely Mountain, King Thrór tried to reclaim the ancient Dwarf kingdom of Moria." For some reason, the name made Ruby shiver. "But the Orcs had got there first, overrunning it with their legions led by the most vile of their race: Azog the Defiler. The giant Gundabad Orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin," he turned to Ruby and explained, "the eldest and greatest of the seven Dwarven lines, which Thorin is one of the last decedents.

"Azog began his vow by beheading the king," Balin choked a moment at that, in remembrance. "Thrain, Thorin's father, was driven mad by grief. He became fixated on Erebor, but he went missing soon after the battle when he set off with only a few companions. If he was taken prisoner or killed we do not know. After the King was killed, we became leaderless and the battle turned into a rout with the Dwarves demoralized. Defeat and death were upon us. That is when I saw him," Balin changed tone and nodded over to Thorin. "A young Dwarf prince facing down the pale Orc. He stood alone against this terrible foe. His armor rent wielding nothing but an oaken branch as a shield. Azog learned that day that the line of Durin would not be so easily broken. He wounded the pale Orc and our forces rallied, driving the Orcs back, finally defeating our foes.

"But there was no feast nor song that night" Balin continued, "for our dead were beyond the count of grief. We few had survived, and I thought to myself then as I saw Thorin, there is one who I could follow. There is one I could call king."

Ruby looked back at Thorin and noticed almost everyone standing, looking at Thorin with in awe and respect. Thorin turned back to then and returned into the ring. "And the pale Orc? What happened to him?" Bilbo asked.

"He slunk back into the hole whence he came," Thorin growled. "That filth died of his wounds long ago."

"And… what of Moria? Did you get it back?" Ruby then asked.

Balin sighed. "After the Battle of Azanulbizar we were all too few to reclaim and hold our ancient halls. We had beaten our enemy, but a darker force dwelled within. Durin's Bane. The reason we lost Khazad-Dûm so long ago. Dain refused to enter, and none disagreed, for we did not want to suffer more losses against a foe that was greater than the one we had just fought." He looked off into the distance. "One day, we will reclaim our halls and return Moria to its glory… but we must look to Erebor first, and the night is growing longer. We should rest."

The Dwarves broke out of the slight funk they were in and went back to their sleeping rolls. Ruby looked at Bilbo who seemed to be thinking deeply before he too went to his own mat. Ruby crept back into her own bag and lay there thinking as well. _They won, but accomplished nothing except to lessen the Orcs there. Much like us and the Grimm… this world isn't too different from mine I guess. But I wonder what it would be like to be in a battle like that?... I actually don't want to know,_ she decided, not wanting to see that kind of fighting.

She sighed and rolled over, closing her eyes, trying to sleep, blocking out the sounds around her. She fell asleep gradually, and when she did, she dreamed of battles and flames, and white Grimm. Ruby was interrupted when she was woken up hours later for her part of the watch, which was uneventful and went back to sleep after it was over, having no more dreams the rest of the night.

They continued on the next day and the next few days grew slightly colder until one day the skies opened up and it started raining, much to the disgruntlement of everyone. Even the ponies seemed to be a little less upbeat. Ruby put her hood up to keep her head somewhat dry. _Good thing I got this water proofed._ The rest of her slowly got soaked as the rain kept coming.

Eventually Dori shouted out, "Here, Mr. Gandalf, can't you do something about this deluge?" _Oh right, he is a Wizard… apparently,_ Ruby thought. _I haven't seen him use any magic though… well, aside from that time he lit his pipe without a match,_ she just remembered.

"It is raining Master Dwarf and it will continue to rain until the rain is done. If you wish to change the weather of the world you should find yourself another Wizard," Gandalf responded.

 _Another? Huh, so there are other Wizards then. Wish we had one of those weather changing ones here… and it isn't even proper rain! I can still see the sun! I wonder if Dust could affect the weather like this…_

"Are there any?" Bilbo's voice called out to Gandalf.

"What?"

"Other Wizards."

"There are five of us," Gandalf said. "The greatest of our order is Saruman the White. Then there are the two Blue Wizards…" he trailed off for a moment. "Do you know I've quite forgotten their names," he said, sounding mildly surprised at that.

Ruby blinked in surprise at that. _That's like forgetting the names of your teammates._ "So I guess you don't see each other often then?" She asked.

"No, not often. Very rarely do we meet and only for extremely urgent matters that need to be resolved. It's been quite a while since we've had a full order meeting."

There was a pause, then Bilbo asked, "And who is the fifth?"

"Ah, well that would be Radagast the Brown."

"Is he a great Wizard, or is he more like you?" _Ooooh, burn. Not very nice Bilbo, but good burn._

"I think he's a very great Wizard… in his own way," Gandalf said, sounding mildly slighted. "He's a gentle soul who prefers the company of animals to others. He keeps a watchful eye over the vast forestlands to the east. And a good thing too. For always evil will look to find a foothold in this world. We, the Wizards, are the watchers of this land, trying to root out where the Enemy may hide in wait."

Ruby had to ask, hearing it being talked about a couple of times. "And… who is the enemy?"

Lightning flashed and thunder roared like vengeful beasts, causing the Dwarves and company to cringe and try to get the ponies from bolting. "It would be wise, Miss Ruby Rose, to not talk about such things, especially here in these less than happy lands," Gandalf said after they regained their hearing.

"Sorry…" Ruby appologized, subdued. She wasn't entirely convinced the thunder and lightning were coincidental, and that made it all the more frightening. _Who is this enemy?_

Fortunately with that last bark, the storm seemed to loose its bite (dang it Yang) and a short time later the rain petered off and the sun started shining again. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief as the constant sound of the rain hitting their cloaks and baggage faded, and they could start to dry off.

Ruby had to unfortunately admit though; it was about as much as a shower as she had gotten in a while, and the best way to wash her clothes. Since they had been moving continuously more or less, she hadn't been able to get a good full-body rinse in (and going to the bathroom was an experience and a half…), though there had been a few rivers and streams that she went by herself to freshen up a bit, just without soap or shampoo. _Let's just say that it's been… interesting without warm water and a Dust powered washing machine and leave it at that._

Another week had passed and they were approaching the end of May and were closer to the Misty Mountains. It was noticeable as the air was getting just a bit thinner than before and they were starting to go uphill more often than not.

At the end of one day they came across the shambles of a house, one that looked abandoned for a while at the top of a small incline. Thorin stopped and turned his pony around and addressed the group, "We'll camp here for the night."

Ruby sighed in relief as she slid off her pony, Glimmer she had learned the ironic name, as it had been another long day that seemed to go longer than others. Gandalf went to inspect the former house. "Fili, Kili, look after the ponies. Make sure you stay with them," Thorin started giving out orders. "Oin, Gloin, Get a fire going."

People started unloading their gear and Ruby set down her pack which was slightly heavier now as they had stockpiled on food and needed to split it, keeping an eye on Bombur to make sure he didn't eat all of his already. Ruby heard Gandalf say, "I think it would be wiser to move on. We could make for the Hidden Valley." Ruby saw that Thorin had went over to the Wizard and they seemed to start arguing.

Ruby put it aside for now, focusing on unloading the things and taking care of her pony, but then Gandalf stormed past them all after a moment. "Everything all right?" Bilbo asked, but didn't receive a reply. "Gandalf, where are you going?"

"To seek the company of the only one around here who's got any sense," he said gruffly.

"And who's that?"

"Myself, Mr. Baggins!" He snapped back at the Hobbit. Then he muttered to himself, "I've had enough of Dwarves for one day."

Ruby looked back and forth from Gandalf and Thorin, who seemed to ignore Gandalf's outburst. "Come on Bombur, we're hungry."

"Is he coming back?" Bilbo asked Balin, who's only response was to shrug.

"He'll come back," Ruby answered Bilbo. "He just needs some time to cool down before he says something he really doesn't mean." _Yang has the same strategy when she's upset; I've seen it enough times. Though when it is really bad… well, it's a good thing Dad has a big paycheck from teaching at Signal to pay for all those punching bags._ "He'll be back. When, is a different story." _Though considering the look on Thorin's face, he may leave before he comes back._

They unloaded their gear and set up camp, getting a fire started, with Bombur making a nice smelling stew. That was another thing; Ruby had to admit she started to grow accustomed to the food here, since there wasn't anything else really, and it was pretty good, if a little light on the seasoning. One thing she did miss though was cookies… or just sugar in general. She wasn't an addict to the stuff no matter how much or often she ate them, but it did help with her Semblance a bit, to give her some extra energy. Just one of the little quirks she had.

It had become night and everyone was still eating or just relaxing after another day. However there was still no sign of the grey Wizard and he had been gone for several hours already. _I know he's coming back, but I would like it if he did so sooner rather than later,_ Ruby thought to herself as she had another spoonful of stew.

Bilbo had the same thoughts as he was staring, searching for the Wizard. Ruby went over to him. "Hey, he'll be back, don't worry," she said reassuringly.

"But he's been gone a while. What if he left for good?" Bilbo asked.

"I doubt that," Ruby said. "He just needed to cool his head a bit."

"For a couple hours?" Bilbo retorted.

Ruby opened her mouth, but then clicked it shut. _He is right. As much as I think Gandalf can take care of himself it has been a while… He couldn't have gone far, right?_

She shrugged to herself. "Okay. I could go looking for him if you want."

"Huh? Well, that's very generous of you Miss Rose-"

"Call me Ruby," she interrupted him.

"Ruby," Bilbo nodded slowly. "That's generous of you, but it's really not that much of a concern."

"Nah, it's fine. I don't have much to do anyway. Plus I need to stretch my legs a bit. Been a while since I ran." Ruby went back over to her pack and got her sweetheart then went back over to Bilbo and announced to the camp, "I'm going to go look for Gandalf. I'll be back in a bit!" She didn't wait for a response before she crouched and then took off sprinting, knowing she was leaving behind a trail of rose petals.

In the world of her Semblance, things slowed down marginally and she could think faster of what needed to be done. When she first started using her speed, everything was normal, she just moved faster and had run into quite a few walls trying to test it.

But now she had vastly more control over her Semblance and the environment was more open than the walls of Signal, so she went for a good two minutes before stopping. "Ahh that felt good!" Ruby exclaimed, glad to just run. She looked around, the moon providing enough light so she could see around her, though she didn't have Faunus night vision, so it wasn't the best.

"Okay, so… if I were a wizard, where would I be?" Ruby wondered aloud. After a minute of thinking and just walking forward she said, "Yep, I have no clue." _So where should I start? What did they say about basic tracking in Signal? Uhhh… something about footsteps? Indents in the grass? Broken branches? No wait, that was mainly to find injured Grimm. Drat! Blake would probably be way better at this. She's like a ninja, plus she's a Faunus as well. I wish I had my team with me. Or that I was just back home._

With no clear direction, she started walking and jogging, switching in-between the two to cover more ground in a basic search pattern. And by basic, meaning the only one she remembered.

This time left her alone, which was a first for a while, meaning that she could think and she took a moment to recap. _I've been here about a month already… I hope Weiss, Blake, and Yang, and my dad aren't going frantic looking for me. They must be worried sick. Weiss probably is secretly blaming herself… I wish I could get back sooner so they wouldn't worry anymore about me. Maybe they've found out that I'm not on Remnant anymore and are looking for ways to bring me back. I don't want them to send somebody, if that's possible, because then they'd be stuck as well._

 _This isn't helping Ruby. Don't think about what's happening somewhere else… Okay. So so far not much has been going on actually, except (if this were a story or movie) backstory and exposition. I sorta' want something to happen, but I also don't want to jinx it… I probably just did. But it is a change from school and having to watch out for Grimm, though apparently there's other creatures out there as well. Agh! Gandalf where are you? I want to go to sleep! Even though this was my idea!_

She took a look at her Scroll for the time, which still thankfully was the same, unlike the date. _Ugh, 11:56. Whatever. Gandalf can come back when he wants to. Now I just need to find my way back to camp._ She took a second look at her Scroll and saw she was sitting at 67% power. _Ick!_ She turned it off again and started heading back to the camp, definitely feeling like it was midnight.

A sudden whinny caught her by surprise and curiosity. _Whose horse is that?_ She jogged to where she heard it and saw almost all of the ponies from the company just huddled together, visibly nervous, and definitely _not_ at the camp where they were supposed to be. "What happened? How did they get out?" _I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this._

She slowly made her way to them, careful not to startle them and gently took the reigns of one of them. "Shhh, it's okay. It's okay." She started talking to them in low, gentle tones to calm them down. _I have to bring them back to camp. All seventeen of them. I think I can do two at a time, I sorta recognize where I am right now, its not that far._ She grabbed another pony's reigns and started leading them back to the camp.

It took a few more minutes to lead the two back to the camp, and she found it abandoned, the fire still going. "Oh… that's not good." She quickly left the ponies inside the house as there really wasn't anywhere to tie them down and ran back to the others. She repeated this two more times before the herd mentality came into play and they started following Ruby, which made her job easier. Some time later she managed to coral all the ponies back at the camp.

"Now then… where are the rest of them?" She noticed that there were a lot of footsteps in the grass going into the woods and followed them. Then she came across where the ponies were originally kept and saw several uprooted trees. _Looks like an Ursa came through here. What could do that here?_ She followed the tracks and saw a fire light in the distance and loud voices talking. Then she heard the unmistakable tone of Bilbo's voice, and as she came closer, could hear the Dwarves grumbling.

Ruby crept closer to the fire, trying to stay out of the light, and saw that all the Dwarves were in sacks or on a ramshackle rotisserie above the large fire. That was strange in on itself, but what drew her attention were the three large… things that obviously had the Dwarves prisoner. There were about fifteen feet high and were a motley pale brown, wearing rags and smelling something awful, even from this distance.

And apparently they were trying to… cook the Dwarves. _What?_

One of the things just told the other one to shut up and said, "Let the uh… flurgaburburhobbit talk."

"The uh, secret to cooking Dwarf is uhm…" Bilbo stammered out. _What?! What's Bilbo doing?_

"Yes? Come on." The thing prodded.

"It's uh-"

"Tell us the secret."

"Yes I'm telling you," Bilbo seemed frustrated that he was getting interrupted... but not really. As if it were an act. "The secret is _sss_ …. to _oooo_ skin them first!" Bilbo finally said, as if he just thought of it… which he probably did. Understandably the Dwarves burst into outrage at that. _Skin them? What's he trying to do? No, he has a plan, he's doing this for a reason… just what that is is up for debate._

"Tom, get me filleting knife," the thing said, wanting to test out what Bilbo said.

"What a load of rubbish!" The other creature said, the one spinning the Dwarves around above the fire. "I've eaten plenty with their skins on. Scarf them, I say, boots and all!" It seemed to want to actually do that and licked its lips disgustingly.

"Ah, uh, no actually! No! No no no no, you don't want to do that! I just remembered: they're infected!" Bilbo rushed out.

"Huh?" _Huh?_

"They what?" The creatures seemed confused at that. Ruby was too.

"Yeah they've got worms in their… tubes." Ruby almost snorted aloud at the absurdity of that, blowing her cover. _Worms in their tubes? Really?_ Somehow that made two of them recoil from the Dwarves. "Yes, they all have. They're all infested with parasites. It's a terrible business, I wouldn't risk it, I really wouldn't." _Ohhhhhh I get it now! He's stalling! Trying to make time for… something._

The Dwarves started protesting, saying that they didn't have parasites, but then there was a sound of someone being hit and they fell silent. _What's going on? What just happened?_ Ruby couldn't see from her vantage point. Then their tune changed. "I've got parasites as big as my arm!"

"Mine are the biggest parasites, I got huge parasites!" She heard Kili cry out. _Ah, they caught on._

"What would you have us do then: let 'em all go?" The main creature asked sarcastically in it's gravely tone.

"Well…" Bilbo said, waning to say yes.

"You think I don't know what you're up to? This little ferret is taking us for fools!"

"Fools?!"

"Ferret?!" Bilbo squawked.

"You're right," the third creature with a higher pitched voice agreed as he made his way around the fire pit. "He _is_ making us fools. Let's just eat them now! Nothing wrong with a bit of raw Dwarf!" He suddenly grabbed Bombur and held him above his mouth. "Nice and crunchy!"

Now was the time to act as no one else could do anything in time. Ruby quickly pulled Crescent Rose out and turned it into rifle form and aimed for less than a second and then fired. Her shot went true and hit the things' arm, blowing out a chunk of it. With an anguished cry of pain, the thing dropped Bombur and clutched its arm, blood so dark it was almost black coming out of it.

Everything stopped at the suddenness of it save for the whimpering creature. Ruby stood up from her hiding spot and strode into the clearing. _Now it's time to show them what a Huntress can do._ "HEY! Let them go! Now!" Ruby shouted at them.

"Aaahg! What'd you do to me?!" The wounded creature shouted/whined. "Part of me arm's gone!" The other two stopped what they were doing and stalked over to her.

"A human girl? You'll pay for that you little pipsqueak!" The leader of the lot said bringing out a crude knife, or what could be considered a knife for a thing of its size.

"I'd bet she'd be nice and tender, just like that farmer's daughter," the second one said.

Ruby didn't respond, instead choosing to shift her stance and wait for the inevitable charge. They didn't disappoint as the one with the knife charged at her. Just as the Dwarves shouted a warning, as the knife was getting to close for her to avoid, Ruby activated her Semblance and jumped straight up, disappearing in a cloud of rose petals.

 _Let's get this started._ She channeled her Aura to transform Crescent Rose automatically into its full scythe form and then fired upwards, sending her flying back to the ground, spinning as she went into a Ferris wheel of death. She made the blade cut into the shoulder of the creature and felt more resistance than she initially expected. _So they're more like older Grimm with thicker hides then. Okay, that explains why my Dust round didn't turn its arm into mush. I'll adjust._

As she thought, she landed on the ground and rushed forward, her scythe a red blur as she cut into the thing's legs and lower chest multiple times, leaving multiple wounds, blood starting to gush out of the wounds. She finished her assault with a diagonal upswing across its chest, causing a large gash to appear. Sensing danger she fired into the thing's chest, causing more damage, and rolled backwards with the recoil just as the uninjured creature tried to hammer her into the ground with its fists. She cocked the gun and fired it behind her, rushing at the thing's head.

It leaned back from the approaching red blur, but not enough to prevent her blade from slicing into its face, causing its already blind eye to become unsalvageable in any form. She kicked off of its head and flew to the one with the injured arm. With a cry of rage and pain it tried to hit her with it's good arm, but she hooked the scythe around it and spun, cutting into it and making it loose the hand as she pulled and shot, severing it completely.

She continued her swing, bringing her steel-toed boots into its jaw, knocking its head back. She jumped and aimed the barrel right into its mouth and fired, flying backwards a short distance until she landed on the ground. An explosion of blood and meaty bits sprayed out of the back of its head. For a moment it teetered, and almost in slow motion the thing fell to its knees, then keeled over, dead from having its brains splattered out onto the trees behind it.

"TOM!" The one with the injured eye cried out, then in a blind rage charged at Ruby. She just calmly cocked her gun again and met his charge, shooting herself forward so that she momentarily disappeared from the visible eye, reappearing just behind the thing, holding onto the end of the pole, swinging herself back around as the point of her scythe was buried in its chest, stopping her momentum. She landed on its back and pulled, firing one-two-three times to completely pull her scythe through its chest.

She jumped back to avoid the blood spray and the thing gave a keening wail as it tried to hold itself in its skin. It was dead, as it wouldn't survive more than a few minutes yet, but hadn't finished the journey to the realm of the dead. The last one turned and if glares could kill, Ruby would have dropped.

"I'LL TAKE YOU!" It roared in anger, and started to lurch forward, hampered by its wounds.

"The dawn will take you all, and be stone to you!" A new voice called out, making them turn to look at the ring of the clearing. A figure stepped up into the light, a vey familiar one.

"Gandalf!" Ruby exclaimed.

Gandalf raised his staff and brought it down on the boulder he was standing on and split it, letting the rising sunlight stream into the clearing. As the light hit the things, they screamed as if they were being burned. There was a hissing sound, like water being poured over a fire, and their skin started cracking and turning grey. It was as if they were being turned into concrete as they slowly froze in various positions of pain and movement, even the dead one doing the same. A few seconds later, all three of them had turned to stone, one laid out on the ground as the one she shot, another curled up, kneeling, and the last still standing, but with it's hand frozen in a weird position.

The Dwarves and Bilbo were stunned at what just happened, then they burst out cheering, both for Ruby and Gandalf. "That was amazing!" "How'd you do that!" "Gandalf!" Ruby breathed out and let herself smile, slipping out of her combat frame of mind.

Soon enough, the Dwarves on the spit started talking, "I uh am getting pretty hot here!" Ori exclaimed, with Bifur also shouting something in what Ruby supposed was Dwarvish.

"Oh! Here, I can help with that!" Ruby said and brought her scythe to bear. "Brace yourselves!" She warned, then sliced the supports of the spit, causing it to go off balance and for them to roll over, out of the fire and onto the ground. They landed hard, especially the ones under all the others, but at least they wouldn't be cooked. She walked over and carefully used her scythe to cut some of the ropes so the Dwarves could get out on their own.

She noticed Gandalf had gotten down from the rocks and was helping the Dwarves in the sacks get out of them, plus Bilbo. They thanked Gandalf, but most of them swarmed Ruby and were offering her thanks and phrase, calling her 'Troll Killer.' _So I guess that's what those things are-were, Trolls. They were actually not that difficult… I'd take them over Grimm every day._

"Whoa, okay, thank you!" She said over the Dwarves' congratulations, "But it wasn't really that hard! I just wish I could have been here sooner!"

"Don't be so modest," Dwalin came over and patted (smacked) her on the back. "Not everyone can go up against a Troll solo, and you went up against three!"

"Aye, that's something special," Bofur said.

 _Geeze, if that's how they react to this, I wonder what they would say when we fought that giant Nevermore during initiation._ Eventually the Dwarves calmed down a bit and Ruby managed to free herself from the group, making her way to Bilbo. "Nice job stalling with the Trolls. That was some quick thinking."

Bilbo nodded shakily, "It was, ah, the only thing I could think of. Sunlight causes them to turn into… that," he waved his hands at the statues. "And both you and Gandalf were gone."

"Good job," Ruby said, giving him a hug, then stepped back. Bilbo blinked for a moment, surprised, then gave a smile in return.

"What you did was impressive. I just wasn't expecting… that… level of violence."

Ruby smiled bashfully at the thanks, but grew serious, "That's what battle is like though."

Bilbo would have said something in response, but Thorin came into the group. "We need to find the ponies and then make sure our supplies are okay."

"Uh, actually," Ruby interrupted, "I gathered the ponies inside that old house, and our stuff was still there the last I checked."

Thorin looked surprised for a moment, but then gave the barest hint of a smile. "It appears we can add Pony Wrangler to her list of titles," he said, drawing a laugh from the Dwarves and an embarrassed blush from Ruby. "Come on, we're going to check on the ponies, then we're looking for the Troll's cave."

"And why are we looking for the Troll's cave?" Bilbo asked.

"Because Trolls have a habit of collecting treasure," Balin explained.

"Not as much as dragons though," Bofur said next as they started following Thorin to their camp, "but Trolls collect stuff without knowing what it is. Stupid things."

"Ah, well that clears that up," Bilbo said. The group set out and went back to camp, collecting their stuff. Ruby found her backpack and put that on again, and some of the others got their packs just because.

She found a chance to talk to Gandalf when they were at camp. "So where were you last night? I went looking for you."

"Oh I'm terribly sorry about that," Gandalf apologized. "I went looking at our path ahead. Only when I looked behind did I see the trouble they were in. I must say that was some impressive fighting. I've only seen Elves move that fluidly before, and not as fast."

"Oh not you too," Ruby whined, feeling like her face would stay red.

Gandalf just chuckled and moved on. The group got their stuff and once it looked like everyone was ready, Thorin said, "Now let's go find that Troll hole."

They decided to take the ponies with them after they loaded most of the stuff onto them. It wasn't that hard to find as they soon found where the Trolls had walked and worn down the vegetation into a path. They followed the tracks up a hill until they found the hole, somewhat disguised by the surrounding woods.

One of the reasons they found it was the stench.

"Oh Dust, what is that smell?" Ruby exclaimed, pinching her nose. She could hear flies and other bugs buzzing around. _And is… is that a skull? Ohugh…_

Gandalf led the way in, with Thorin bringing a torch he had. "It's a Troll-hoard," he said, as if that explained it… which it sorta' did. "Be careful what you touch." _Be careful what you smell!_ She covered her entire mouth and nose. She wasn't the only one as the Dwarves were suffering as well, coughing and gaging at the stench.

They quickly became preoccupied when the torchlight made something on the ground glitter, as it turned out to be coins and other valuables. "Seems a shame just to leave it lying around," Bofur idly commented as the Dwarves started opening up chests, finding more gold. "Anyone could take it."

"Agreed," Gloin said. "Nori?"

"Yeah?"

"Get a shovel." Nori hurried out of the cave to get said tool.

Ruby couldn't resist and grabbed a handful of coins and put them inside the bag she had. She looked up and saw that Fili was looking at her amusedly. She shrugged, "What?" He just snorted and went back to looking at the treasure.

 _I really don't need money, so I'm not_ that _interested… but it is gold! Though what I_ am _interested in are the weapons!_ She noticed the little barrels that had various swords and other weapons in there. She went over to one of them and it seemed that Thorin had the same idea as they were at the same place.

 _Now, I do know how to use a sword, as that was like basic stuff at Signal, plus me having to find the right weapon for me, but I'm not like Pyrrha or Weiss level. Nowhere near that! I just know basic forms, so I'm like above where Jaune is now. Spears are a little better since they do need two hands, but scythes are the bomb!_

She looked along the wall and saw a peculiar short sword in a sheath. She picked it up and saw that it had a design on the leather sheath that reminded her of flowing water, with letters on it that flowed and curled gracefully. She couldn't read it obviously. Brushing off some of the cobwebs, she grasped the hilt, which was in-between a single and a hand-and-a-half, and was tinted red-black, which was one of the reasons it caught her eye.

Ruby pulled it out of the sheath and immediately started analyzing it. It was a straight, double-edged blade, about 19 inches (or ~48 centimeters) long, making the whole short sword about 25 inches (64 cm) from hilt to point. The blade at the cross guard was a little over 2 inches wide that gradually tapered to the point, and the blade had the same design that was on the sheath. It was lighter than Ruby thought it would be. _I… I think I'll keep this,_ Ruby thought. _Mountain Glenn taught me to have a second weapon, and reminded me that I'm pants at unarmed combat._

"These swords were not made by any Troll," she heard Thorin say. She saw that he was holding two cobweb ridden swords that looked similar in design and make to the one she was holding, save full length. He handed the straight bladed one to Gandalf for him to inspect.

"Nor were they made by any smith among Men," he said as he pulled the blade out a bit. "These were forged in Gondolin by the High Elves of the First Age." _Elves? I have an Elvish sword?_ Ruby looked at the one in her hand, trying to remember the fairy tales of what the swords could do. She then saw that Thorin was about to put the sword back in disgust before Gandalf said, "You could not wish for a finer blade." Thorin stopped and then took a look at it. It was a single-edge blade, and judging from the curve, it was made for heavy chopping or slicing blows rather than piercing.

Gandalf seemed to like the sword and held it against his chest intending to take it with him. Ruby walked past them and saw that the other Dwarves had finished filling a chest with treasure and were burying it. She stopped by Dwalin who looked like a sentry and glanced at the Dwarves burying the chest. Gloin looked up and said, "We're making a long-term deposit." Ruby chuckled and Dwalin just snorted softly.

"Let's get out of this foul place. Come on, let's go." He started walking out, calling the others that were in there with him.

They came out and Ruby gulped down fresh air. "Ah, sweet air!" _I want to have a long shower after that to get the smell out. With lots of soap_ The Dwarves started taking a look at what they had brought out. There were some coins, jewels, and other items like cups.

"Oh these are nice," Kili said, looking at them. "Gold mainly."

"Aye, they'll be nice to have later," Balin commented. "It'll give us a little more leeway if we have to do some bartering."

"Ruby, Bilbo," Gandalf called out, coming out of the cave.

"Huh?" Curious, Ruby came over, following Bilbo, who was also curious.

Gandalf gave Bilbo a short-sword, shorter than the one Ruby had. "Here, this is about your size."

Bilbo reluctantly took it, but looked uncomfortable with it. "I can't take this," he said finally, pushing past his nervousness.

"The blade is of Elvish make, as is yours Ruby, which means it will glow blue when Orcs or Goblins are nearby," Gandalf explained.

Bilbo was exasperated and angsty as he said, "I have never used a sword in my life. I'm not like you or you," he said the second one to Ruby, causing her to feel sad for some reason. _Like me? What does that mean?_

"And I hope you never have to," Gandalf said softly. "But if you do, remember this: true courage is about knowing not when to take a life but when to spare one." _I understand now,_ Ruby realized.

"Bilbo," she said to get his attention, "on Remnant, I fight monsters and have never struck a lethal blow against another person. I'm a Huntress. Yes I fight, but I fight for humanity and my friends," she added. "And I get scared as well when I fight against the Grimm. As someone once said, courage is not ignoring your fear, it's about continuing on despite it."

She stopped and looked at Bilbo, who seemed to be deep in thought at the words spoken to him.

Before he could say something, Thorin shouted, "Something's coming!" Ruby went on alert, and she and Gandalf went over to him, getting ready.

"Stay together!" Gandalf said, "Hurry now, arm yourselves." He followed his words by pulling out his sword. Ruby reached for Crescent Rose before realizing that she was still holding her own sword. _Oh._ She quickly used the straps on it to tie it to her belt, and then brought out her scythe, running after the Dwarves.

 _It's just one thing after another now…_ Ruby thought as she followed the Dwarves. She then was overcome by a yawn. _And I haven't gotten any sleep at all yet! This is going to be a long day._

 _But the story is starting to pick up now!_

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 **Edit: 12/18/17- fixed my measurements/proportions of the sword Ruby gets.**

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 ***1 This date is just made up and is probably not the actual year in RWBY. Stands for 80 years New Vytal Calendar.**

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 **Ruby: Well, I got my wish, things are happening now.**

 **Galen: Yep, finally got a lot of exposition out of the way (though there's more in the future) and now the story is moving along.**

 **R: It's about time. I can still feel my voice hurting from all the talking I had to do explaining things to those blockheaded Dwarves.**

 **G: I know the feeling, just not with Dwarves. Anyway! Wow, this story has gotten a lot of attention: 78 favorites, 112 follows, and a special 34 reviews! thank you all so much! And much thanks to Hazzamo for giving me ideas how to do the fight scene in here, because honestly, I was stumped with that.**

 **R: Yeah! I remember them, they weren't that hard.**

 **G: You know you're gonna' regret that '** **'I'd take Trolls over Grimm any day' comment Ruby in the future.**

 **R: Yeah, I know, I had enough of Trolls and Orcs for a loooooong time.**

 **G: Don't I know it. So then, to sum up Volume 3, I'm still recovering slightly from the finale, but now my** **concern for Volume 4 is growing after I saw a video of Jessica Nigri (the voice of Cinder) saying "Get ready to have all your hopes and dreams destroyed in the next season!"**

 **R: Jessica's a nice person, but it's just so strange that she's also that absolute buttface jerk Cinder!**

 **G: *snorts* Buttface? Really?**

 **R: Shut up! *blushes* I can't say anything worse since this is only a 'T' rating.**

 **G: Do you _know_ anything worse?**

 **R: …Welllll there was that one time Yang said something bad-**

 **G: Aaaaand moving on! Ruby, how's your sword?**

 **R: Oh yeah! Some of you reviewers thought it would be great if I got an Elvish sword or dagger, and, lucky for you, it turned out that way. Though I will tell you, I won't use it a lot compared to Crescent Rose, but there were times I was glad to have a second weapon with me. And you'll find out the name I gave it in the next chapter!~**

 **G: Alright don't tease the readers, that's my job. Okay, I don't have anything else to say. If you leave a review I often send a reply back if warranted, just an FYI. Other than that, m** **ake sure to Read, Review, Favorite, and Follow this story, and I wouldn't object if you Favorited/Followed me as well.**

 **So until next time**

 **-OrangeGalen**

 **R: And Ruby Rose! I'll still be here!**

 **G: Well yeah, you're, like, the main character actually.**

 **R: I know!~ See ya!**

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Chapter length: 13,489


	3. A Rest at Rivendell

**I do not own RWBY or any Tolkien related material, and have no claim on either of them. The idea for this story is mine and is purely for fun.**

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Ruby caught up to the Dwarves who had spaced themselves out in a semi-circle, waiting for whatever was coming to show up in the middle of them and then to quickly close the circle, trapping the thing inside them. Ruby took a space in their formation and got her scythe ready to charge forward and attack. Though she wasn't going to without first seeing who or what it was, as they weren't in a battle just yet. Hypothetically it could be another traveler.

 _Something's coming fast!_ She could hear bushes rustling and branches cracking, closer and closer as the thing advanced rapidly. _It's either something large, or a bunch of things,_ she thought as she could hear multiple feet or legs hitting the ground. _Definitely a mount of some sort judging from the sounds and speed._

Suddenly, from a bush a bunch of rabbits came bounding out. The odd thing was that all of them were attached to a harness and as they came further out, Ruby saw they were pulling a sled with a person on it.

"Thieves! Fire! Murder!" Came a cry from the person as they came to a halt.

Ruby blinked. "Uh, what?"

Her surprise, or rather inability to comprehend what she was looking at, was what caused her near deadpan exclamation. The person on the sled was eccentric looking (in the off-the-deep end way) as he was wearing a brown cloak that was really worn down and used, with sticks and twigs and mud in, on, and staining it. He had a hat that was similar in style to Bofur's, but Ruby saw that his scraggily brown hair was caked in… bird poop. And not just a little of it, _a lot_ of it.

The man stopped the sled in the middle of the company, but Ruby could see that he wasn't paying attention to them at all, his eyes wandering, untethered. "Radagast! It's Radagast the Brown," Gandalf said, introducing the man to them all as he sheathed his new sword, his voice showing signs of relief and fondness.

"Isn't that that other wizard Gandalf spoke about a while back?" Ruby softly asked Bilbo as the Dwarves seemed to realize they weren't under attack and slowly lowered their weapons.

"I think so, yeah," Bilbo nodded. Ruby looked at the newcomer with a different look. _Ah, there's his staff,_ Ruby noticed it on the sled as Radagast focused his attention on Gandalf.

Gandalf had walked up to Radagast. "What on earth are you doing here?" The question was asked with maybe the slightest bit of trepidation mixed with minor exasperation.

"I was looking for you, Gandalf," Radagast started to explain. "Something's wrong. Something's _terribly_ wrong."

"Yes?" Gandalf prompted when Radagast stopped.

Radagast held up a finger and took a breath to start talking, but then froze. Then he appeared to remember what his thought was and tried again, but once again froze. "Uh, just give me a minute."

 _Really?_ Ruby found herself frowning in disbelief just from the oddity of this. _He comes in with an important message, then can't remember it. I… I don't even…_ Maybe it was because she hadn't slept a wink all night, or she was coming down from an adrenaline high, but her ability to think was fading.

"Oh, I had a thought and now I've lost it! It-it was right there on the tip of my tongue!" Radagast said, disappointed in himself but wanting to say the important thing he had to tell, but couldn't. It vaguely reminded Ruby of when she was younger and had the same happen to her. Though it was definitely weird to see a grown man/wizard have the same problem.

Then Radagast got a weird look on his face and his tongue furled into his mouth. "Oh. It's not a thought at all," he said, talking through the thing he was doing with his tongue. "It's a silly old…" he opened his mouth and Ruby saw Gandalf pull something from it that made Ruby feel a bit queasy. "… stick insect."

 _Eugh._ Ruby cringed, both inwardly and outwardly, revolted. _What is with this wizard? It's like there's something… off in his brain. Almost reminds me of Nora a bit… ah, okay on second thought they're not alike, I'd take Nora any day,_ she decided _._ She exchanged glances with Bilbo and a few other Dwarves at Radagast's strangeness.

"Perhaps we should continue this… enlightening conversation in private Radagast," Gandalf amicably suggested, though it seemed he was also off-put with the Brown Wizard's antics.

"Ah, yes yes, I remember now. 'Tis not something to be discussed lightly," Radagast said after gently placing the stick insect on his sled and picking up his staff, his tone shifting to something serious. For a moment Ruby thought he was an actual wizard, with the actual weight and gravity the position held. As the two wizards walked away, Ruby had a thought. _Y'know, the only other person I know that has that same feel is Ozpin, strangely enough._

"Ori, Bifur, Oin," Thorin suddenly said as he stared after the two wizards, then turned to the three Dwarves in question, "go gather our ponies. We've been delayed long enough for one day." The three Dwarves nodded and walked off in the direction of their camp.

Ruby noticed that she still had her scythe out decided to look it over for any damage. Something that she had learned from Signal and Beacon was when after encountering a new creature- though back home it was a new type of Grimm- one should inspect their weapon for damage and review its effectiveness against the Grimm. And as ugly as it was, the trolls were a new creature, and the worse thing that could happen was her sweetheart not functioning- or worse, breaking- during a future fight. Stone-cold pragmatism right there.

 _Though I do have this new sword, which looks pretty well made,_ Ruby thought as she moved off to the side and sat down on a rock. _Though I prefer scythes obviously._ She took off her pack and brought out a relatively clean cloth and started running it over the scythe blades, wiping off as much of the dark troll blood as she could. After she got her blade clean-ish, she then begun inspecting it, partially as something to do and also to keep her mind focused from dozing off.

Ruby began to think. _For all the benefits of mecha-shift weapons, if there's something wrong with it, then it's one of three things. One: it's a simple problem like the shift being slower or something's loose- easily fixed by a recalibration or just regular maintenance. Two: -an exponentially greater problem- the weapon looses one or more of its capabilities because of a broken or loose part and is dangerous to use. Three: the weapon self-destructs, falling apart or - worse- blowing up. While the technology and the manufacturing of these weapons has gotten better, the danger is still there._

 _That's one of the benefits Jaune or even Weiss has. They still have a blade to fight with, especially Jaune's because it is_ just _a sword -excluding his shield, which is stupidly simple as well. If I had to assign levels of danger to our weapons falling apart, then those two would be the lowest, then Blake, Ren, Yang, Nora (though hers would probably explode!), Pyrrha, and then me as the highest unfortunately. I know the potential drawbacks of my sweetheart and I took great means to make it durable. Numerous prototypes, new tech to make it, and then getting the right metal that would work. But poor maintenance will ruin it._

" _But worse are the webs_!" Ruby looked up from her inspection upon hearing Radagast's voice, which echoed slightly. That coupled with the fact Ruby was sitting unintentionally closer than the others to the talking wizards made it so she could occasionally hear them, though out of privacy and respect she tuned them out. But that time she heard Radagast's voice. _Webs?_ She glanced over as Gandalf echoed her thoughts and asked him what he meant. " _Spiders Gandalf_." She then couldn't hear them anymore as they started talking softer, but Ruby didn't want to hear more.

 _I hate spiders. Not as much as Yang, who almost burnt down the house once, but still a lot. But what are they talking about? Unless it was a lot of spiders and a lot of webs I don't think they would be talking about it unless there was something else about it. Although if they're not talking about it to us, then I probably shouldn't pry._ Ruby tried to put it out of her mind as she got out her emergency toolkit.

"What are you doing?" Ruby looked up to see Nori, Fili, and Bombur of all people, in front of her, looking at her weapon and by extension herself. It was Bombur that asked the question.

"Oh, just some maintenance on Crescent Rose," Ruby shrugged. "After that fight with the trolls I want to make sure she still works properly."

"Somethin' like that break easily?" Fili asked, suddenly skeptical.

"No no," Ruby reassured him. "It's just something I was taught to do after fighting an unfamiliar Grimm, or creature in this case. It's like sharpening a dull sword. If our equipment breaks out in the field then we're usually in a lot of trouble. A lot of small moving parts raises the danger of a malfunction. But I," Ruby couldn't help the proud tone that snuck in, "designed my sweetheart, and nothing, short of a Goliath stepping on it, will _break_ break it."

"What's a Goliath?" Nori asked.

"It's a Grimm, and it's like… a _really_ big elephant, except the skin is black and has white bone spikes coming out of its back. Looks awesome but I don't think I could fight one without my team, let alone a herd," Ruby said.

"Reminds me of the tales from the far south. I recall hearing something about a creature called a Mûmakil that sounds similar the thing you're describing," Nori said, looking a little unsettled about the idea of such creatures.

"Wow, really! I wish I could see one!" Ruby said excitedly, a smile on her face. How big are the ones here? Are they smaller? Bigger? I want to see one!

"Sorry, but they're many many leagues south of us, and we have our own creatures to deal with," Fili said, sounding apologetic, though his expression spoke of his relief.

"Aww man… oh well," Ruby shrugged and emotionally bounced back. Looking down, she went over from bottom to top of her sweetheart. _Okay, that looks normal, that's fine, that's fine, fine, I should be good for inside the barrel for a while, though it could use a good cleaning,_ she listed off. _Blade gears… need just a little tightening._ She used the screwdriver she had and made the necessary adjustments. _Okay, that's good._ Then she went back down and made sure the chamber was clear before she detached the clip. _I've used ten in total,_ Ruby counted the bullets as she started to reload the magazine to its full 25 rounds, using the bullets from another clip. _So I have 65 rounds left in total. And still no way to resupply. Ten bullets and only one fight? I think I need to ration out my shots. Especially if we're not even halfway yet. Man this is a long journey. I thought it wouldn't take this long._

 _And what's happening at Beacon? The Vytal Tournament should have started by now, and with RWBY down their leader, they wouldn't be able to compete. Oh man, when I get back I hope they're not too angry with me…_

Shaking her head, as those thoughts weren't helpful right then, she cycled the bolt with a _chick-chick_ sound to make sure the chamber was fine and the bolt moved smoothly. Her maintenance finished, she put the clip back in, then collapsed her scythe, the sound causing the Dwarves to pause a second before continuing on, still unused to the mechanical shifting sound. "Good to go," she said to the three still watching her.

Then she frowned. _What's… that?_ She felt something ominous near them and again brought Crescent Rose out in rifle mode to be sure. The dwarves that were watching her were confused at her sudden change of attitude. Ruby was slightly startled when there was some sort of howl/cry of an animal. _That doesn't sound friendly. At it was far too close to us._ There was a prickling feeling on the back of her neck that made her still, the kind of feeling when she was in the wilderness and there were Grimm lurking, waiting, watching.

Everyone took notice of the sound, snapping to attention, looking off into the distance, trying to see where the sound came from. "Was that a wolf? A-are there wolves out there?" Bilbo asked, rightfully worried. Considering his size and lack of fighting experience it was a more serious problem for him.

"That didn't sound like a wolf…" Ruby said carefully. _It sounded closer to a Beowolf howl than a normal wolf._

"No that is not a wolf," Bofur confirmed, his weapon ready.

The only warning they had was the sound of a guttural growling. Ruby looked up and saw a large canine-esque animal come over the hill behind Gloin. Ruby's eyes widened as the creature jumped down and knocked over Dori. Before anything else could happen, Thorin brought his sword down on the wolf's neck, killing it with a wet, metallic sound.

As her eyes trailed upwards from the corpse, Ruby saw another one of those creatures coming from behind Thorin. Acting fast, she brought up Crescent Rose and quickly chambered a round then, taking less than a second to aim, fired at the wolf creature. A loud bang signaled the sudden appearance of a large hole in the wolf's head, and it slumped to the ground and skidded the rest of the way down. Kili brought down his bow as Ruby had beaten him to the kill. Dwalin gave the creature a whack for good measure once it rested at his feet.

"Warg scouts," Thorin announced to the company, as he pulled out his sword from the first corpse. "Which means an Orc pack is not far behind."

 _Orc pack? Orcs, as in the things the Dwarves fought at that one place… uh… Mornima? Mormia? Mu-More- no, Moria. What are they doing here?_ Ruby could feel the adrenaline start to seep into her blood again, washing away, or at least keeping at bay the tiredness that had started to creep back up on. She looked down at the dead creatures. They had brown fur and large teeth; larger than a Beowolf's or Ursa's but not the longest she's seen, as the King Taijitu has that 'honor'. What was disconcerting were its yellow eyes that, even in death, held malice in them. Ruby almost expected them to start evaporating like Grimm because of that.

"Who did you tell about your quest beyond your kin?" Gandalf demanded Thorin as he came up with Radagast. Ruby looked up and saw that the Grey Wizard looked worried.

"No one," Thorin said surely, but Gandalf wasn't.

"Who did you tell?" Gandalf almost shouted.

"No one, I swear!" Thorin reaffirmed. Gandalf gave a huff. "What in Durin's name is going on?" Thorin asked.

"You are being hunted," he stated. It wasn't a hypothesis or a guess: it was a fact with no dispute. With that answer, suddenly everything became more urgent.

"If we're being hunted…" Ruby started.

"We have to get out of here," Dwalin finished. _Yes,_ Ruby agreed. _We don't have the advantage. We're few in number and not outfitted for a fight like I'm picturing would take place. If that wolf-wart thingy is with the Orcs, then that means they also have some form of mounted transportation to keep up with them. Maybe even riding them,_ came the discerning thought. She had the bad mental image of a Grimm riding on top of another Grimm into battle.

"We can't!" Ori suddenly exclaimed, running back with Bifur and Oin from over the hill. "We have no ponies! They bolted!"

"Nooo! And after all the work I did to get them together!" Ruby moaned over the sound of more uncomfortably close roaring. Her tiredness was causing her emotions to be out of whack and she was way more distraught over that than she normally would be. Bilbo rolled his head in exasperation and started to walk off, trying to gain some piece of calm.

"I'll draw them off!" Radagast suddenly said. _Really?_ While Ruby didn't doubt his enthusiasm, with everything she's seen he didn't exactly inspire confidence.

"These are Gundabad Wargs. They will outrun you," Gandalf said, in a harsh but concerned tone, trying to convince Radagast not to attempt to do so, worried over his comrade's well-being.

"These are Rhosgobel rabbits," Radagast countered in a near non-sequitur, pointing to the rabbits attached to his sled. "I'd like to see them try." _I have to hand it to him, he sounds confidant._

There was a moment where the two wizards stared each other in the eye, Radagast trying to convince Gandalf, and Gandalf looking for a sign of surety in this route. Finally Gandalf gave a gruff nod and said, "Very well." Radagast instantly brightened and hopped onto his sled.

"Wait for them to get drawn to my trail and then move. The land ahead of you is open grasslands, but there are rocks to take shelter and avoid their sight. Gandalf knows the way so stay close to him," Radagast said, having a sense of authority in his orders.

Thorin nodded his head and gestured to the two wizards. "Lead the way. The rest of you, don't draw attention to us. We won't be able to fight a full Warg-rider pack without injury. And Rose," Thorin suddenly said to Ruby who looked up at being addressed. "Don't use that… _weapon_ of yours anymore."

Ruby nodded, understanding what he meant (as Crescent Rose wasn't the quietest thing around), _Though he could've said it a little nicer…_ Ruby inwardly pouted but followed his suggestion and holstered her weapon, getting ready.

"Let's go!" Thorin said. Radagast issued a command to his… rabbits, and they shot off, his sled flexible and bending with the uneven wooded ground. After a moment, all sixteen of them started off on a perpendicular course from where Radagast took off, up the hill.

They all paused at the edge of the woods a minute later, with Gandalf at the front, leading them. They were all keeping a keen eye out for any Wargs or their Orcs near them that would give them away. After a moment, Gandalf took off, the rest of them going after him. The ground was uneven, covered in grass and small bushes, with maybe a foot of soil before there was hard rock, as was evidenced by the numerous protrusions out of the ground. Every once in a while Ruby felt her boot kick a rock as they ran. Thankfully she had steel-toed boots with thick soles, her combat boots, so she barely felt them. _Though I still have no idea how Weiss fights in high-heel lady stilts._

She could faintly hear Radagast jeering and laughing at the Orcs, taunting them into following him. It seemed to be working as she could hear the barks of the Wargs and some disturbing guttural cries, though not as far away as she would like. Galdalf paused before they rounded a bolder and Ruby could see Radagast go past in the distance, followed by the Wargs. To her dismay, she could see some of the evil wolves had riders on them, and though she couldn't get a good look at them she could tell their armor wasn't pleasant looking.

"Come on," Gandalf said to let them know the coast was clear. They ducked away from the bolder and resumed running again. _We're doing a lot of that now,_ Ruby thought idly. Because speed was kinda her thing, Ruby ended up in the front of the troop as they went on.

"Which direction are we going?" Ruby asked Thorin, who was running next to her.

"To the East, that direction," Thorin nodded towards the mountains, which were a lot closer than before.

However, they had a close call as Radagast sledded about a hundred yards away in front of them, the Warg-pack in close pursuit. _Too close!_ Thorin and Ruby stumbled to a stop and the company behind them did as well, frantically looking for a way to continue.

"Stay together!" Gandalf said, loud enough so everyone could hear them, but not the Pack. He turned to the right and continued that way, which wasn't the direction Thorin said they needed to go. _Though the direction we were going has that Orc pack in front of us, so this is a good alternative_. Following Gandalf's instructions, they stayed close together, Ruby still in front with Thorin. Every once in a while, she would look behind her to make sure everyone was still there, especially Bilbo. She couldn't help but feel protective of the Hobbit, partly because it was because of her that he was with them in this situation.

She was startled out of her thoughts when she saw Radagast and the Warg train go in front of them. "Not that way!" She said in a panic and held out her arms to stop people from running past, helping stop Ori, who Thorin also grabbed, pushing them back.

"Get back!" Thorin shouted, all of them hiding by the rock, waiting for the wargs to pass.

After a moment, Gandalf said, "All of you, come on. Quick!" He gestured in a direction. Ruby took off, taking point with Thorin staying behind. They continued running and Ruby could feel her heart racing, and not because of the exercise. It was because she didn't want them get caught by the Pack. She set the pace until Gandalf caught up to her and led. _Huh, for an old man he has a lot of stamina._

They all took shelter by a rock formation when the wargs went in front of them. _C'mon Radagast, lead them away, not in front of us!_ Ruby thought in exasperation. Though after a moment, her hopes were dashed when she heard growling and the sound of a blade being drawn on top of the rocks they were on, and she made herself become very still.

There was a pause, then Kili reached to his quiver and drew an arrow. _Is he…?_ After he got ready, he rushed out into view and pulled back the string, aiming at the warg and Orc on top. The growling changed pitch, and Ruby knew that Kili had been spotted. Kili fired and Ruby broke cover to see the arrow sticking out of the thrashing Warg. It was then she spotted the creature riding on top bring up a old fashioned hunting horn, getting ready to blow it before Kili fired another arrow that hit the thing in the center of it's chest. Both creatures toppled over into their midst, however very much _not_ dead.

That fact was made more evident by their sheer screeching cries that Ruby winced to hear. _That sound! It's going to echo!_

The rider got up, the arrow shaft broken off in it, and charged at them with a crude but wicked looking blade, giving a shouting challenge that Dwalin was more than happy to oblige. He swung his war-hammer down on the Orc causing something of the Orc's to crack and break, bringing it to the ground. Bifur came up with a spear and stabbed it with Dwalin moving over to the injured Warg and ending its life with a blow to the neck. Thorin helped by finishing off the Orc with a stab to the back.

Ruby looked at the creature in disgust, and not because of the gore and black blood seeping from it. It was an ugly thing, a mottled grey, with teeth that a dentist would cringe at and a disfigured nose. The Orc was dressed in brown furs and some leather armor, but was mainly unarmored. Its whole being seemed unnatural, but thankfully it didn't give off the feeling of _wrongness_ that at Grimm radiates. It was a disgusting creature that Ruby didn't want to be around.

However, Ruby's attention was far more preoccupied by the echoing sounds of their scuffle, since they were far from quiet. Then she heard the distant shouting of an Orc. And then the howling started to come closer.

"They know we're here!" She shouted in urgency.

"Move!" Gandalf said to rally the Dwarves (and Bilbo) into action. "Run!" Following his own advice he took off, once again becoming the lead. They all followed him as they continued to cross the landscape. There started to be fewer formations for them to hide behind, becoming hillier instead, but that wasn't beneficial since they needed speed instead of stealth since the game was up.

 _Wait a minute, speed! That's my thing!_ "I could hold them off a bit!" Ruby suddenly said to Thorin, offering him a delaying tactic. _We need time and I can give it to them while dwindling their numbers._

"No! Stay with the group!" Thorin roughly ordered and gave no further reasoning.

"But I can help!" Ruby said, challenging his decision. _This is the best way!_

"I said no! United we have a stronger chance," Thorin barked, looking over at her as they ran. There was a moment where Ruby was tempted to go ahead and just do her own thing, but then she was struck with a thought. _He's the leader._ He's _the leader of this group, not me. He makes the decisions, and because I'm part of the team I should listen to him. Wouldn't I be annoyed if Weiss, Blake, or Yang went off without my permission,_ she rhetorically thought to herself. She looked inwards and found that her impulse was brought on by her stubbornness and a sense of authority lingering from being the leader of RWBY. _I guess a semester is enough to make me want to be the natural leader in a group,_ she amusedly thought.

She nodded in acquiescement, and the matter was pushed aside when Gloin shouted, "There they are," pointing out that part of the pack had circled around to be in front of them. The company stopped and started to look around for a way out of their situation. Ruby caught a glimpse of Bilbo's face and regret filled her, seeing the expression he had.

"This way! Quickly!" Gandalf shouted and they ran after him. _Gandalf seems to be leading us somewhere, but where?_ They ran only for a short minute before a couple of wargs and their riders appeared in front. Ruby looked and saw that there were more, something that Kili shouted out.

The Company was quickly being penned in on all sides, their enemies wanting blood. "Kili! Rose! Shoot them!" Thorin shouted.

Ruby smiled to herself. _Finally_. She unfurled Crescent Rose fully and planted the tip into the ground to act as a mono-pod and took aim through the scope. Her first target was a Warg with no rider. She chambered a round and exhaled, then fired. She was rewarded when most of the warg's head exploded into red gore.

She turned her sights onto another, and focused on the Orc riding it. She carefully tracked it, mindful of her ammo supply, and fired, hitting the Orc in the right side of its chest, sending it spiraling off of the Warg. However, she was disgusted when, instead of charging, the warg turned to its mortally wounded but still alive rider and started biting, gnawing at it, as if eating a piece of meat.

Ruby fought down her gag reflex at the scene and fired at the warg, killing it and mixing the carnage together, making her gag and taste bile. She was distracted when she heard Dori shout, "Where's Gandalf?" Ruby glanced behind her and saw that most of the company had been pressed against a small rock formation. However, the pointy gray hat of the wizard, and the wizard himself, was nowhere to be seen. _Where'd he go?_

"He's abandoned us!" Dwalin shouted in anger. Kili continued to fire his arrows, some hitting, others being dodged since the riders were still far enough away to do so. Ori had a slingshot of all things, but did nothing when he fired it.

"Hold your ground!" Thorin shouted, getting his sword ready. Ruby unplanted herself and backed up, deciding not to use any more Dust rounds than necessary. _This is gonna get messy soon,_ she thought, and shook her head to focus. The howls were reminding her of training on Patch, of facing a horde of Beowolves. Young ones, most hadn't even gotten bony face-masks yet, but still a horde. But this was different. These Orcs were… _not_ fighters, because that term still held some respect on both ends. No, they were killers. Something Ruby could feel about them is that they liked bloodshed, if the anticipation they were showing was any giveaway.

Ruby backed up next to Bifur, getting ready to swipe at any warg or Orc that comes close. _At least they're not shooting at us,_ Ruby thought, noticing a lack of archery equipment amongst the Orcs.

"This way you fools!" Ruby turned around in surprise at hearing Gandalf's slightly raspy voice beckon them. She saw the wizard poking out of the ground behind a rock. She came closer and saw that there was an opening into the ground that they could slide down. _It's better than staying up here._

"Come on, move! Quickly! All of you!" Thorin galvanized the company into action and they started towards the hole Gandalf ducked back down into. The Dwarves and Bilbo started sliding down one by one, but Ruby hung back for a moment, guarding their retreat.

However, seeing that their quarry was disappearing, the Orc pack started closing in, hoping to shed some Dwarven, or human blood. She quickly grounded her scythe and fired at a little too opportunistic Warg that charged at them, killing the mutt.

Ruby saw another warg charge at Thorin and _ran_ , utilizing her Semblance, bringing her scythe up in a diagonal slash that caught the warg in the center of its chest and sliced through half of it, blood and guts starting to slide out. It died soon after, and Thorin gave a curt nod in thanks that Ruby returned. Ruby took aim at another Orc whose armor made it look like a deformed spider. The Orc saw her pointing Crescent Rose at it and yanked on its reigns, causing the warg it was riding on to rear up. Ruby had already pulled the trigger and fired, unfortunately hitting the warg instead, killing it but leaving its rider with nothing but a flesh wound in its arm as it rolled away from its dead mount. _Oh well,_ she thought.

Kili was still shooting as well, nailing an Orc with an arrow that stayed still for just long enough. He had just nocked another arrow when Thorin shouted. "Kili! Rose! Run!"

Ruby took that as her cue and hopped down the hole, her cloak trailing behind her. She tried to land on her feet but stumbled and faceplanted into the rocky ground, hard enough that she could see her Aura ripple at the tip of her nose. "Oww." It still hurt even with Aura.

She rolled over, avoiding Kili's own descent, and stood up just as a horn blared up on the surface. Ruby looked up at the entrance and noticed that they were in a cave that formed a tunnel behind them, but was distracted from her inspection by the sounds of arrows whizzing above and the occasional wet _slick_ sound, signaling that an arrow penetrated flesh. There were shouts and hoof beats that Ruby could feel the vibration under her feet.

 _What's happening up there? Is there someone else fighting the Pack up there?_ Ruby got her answer when one of the Orcs tumbled down into their hole and rolled to a stop, a broken off arrow shaft sticking out of its neck. The Dwarves poked at it to make sure it was dead, then Thorin reached down and pulled out the arrowhead with a wet sound. He examined it and all but snarled, "Elves." He threw the arrowhead to the ground and wiped his hands in disgust.

 _What's his problem? Aren't Elves the good guys? They did just help us,_ Ruby thought as she beheld his actions, not understanding. Thorin looked like he was going to have stern words with Gandalf, but Dwalin interrupted that. He had went on down the tunnel and shouted back, "I cannot see where the pathway leads. Do we follow it or no?"

"Follow it of course!" Bofur said, rushing after him, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, _which it kinda is_ , Ruby thought, _seeing how it's better down here than up there_. The Dwarves started moving in that direction and Thorin seemed to put the matter on hold, following as well.

Gandalf idly commented, "I think that would be wise." Ruby looked at Gandalf, still a little confused as to what happened. She saw Bilbo, who looked to be in the same boat as her, just a little more tired. He almost automatically started following the Dwarves.

Ruby moved next to him and that seemed to jolt him out of his own thoughts. "Hey," she greeted. "How are you right now?" She asked because she was a little concerned about the Hobbit.

"I… I do believe that I would be much happier if I were back home right now," Bilbo shakily admitted. "I've never had much excitement in one day. At home the closest is when there was a festival with fireworks and I had to spend the whole day outside. Not… fighting trolls, or wargs, or Orcs…"

Before he could work himself up, Ruby gave him a side hug as they walked. "It's alright to be overwhelmed by new things, but you've handled yourself well, especially with the trolls, distracting them and keeping a clear head. I know I really didn't during my initiation into Beacon, my school. But there's something my Uncle says: 'Never stop moving forward'."

"What does that mean?" Bilbo asked, thankfully not in a criticizing way.

Ruby opened her mouth, and then closed it. "Y'know, I never really asked. It sounded good, profound. I guess it means that if you keep going, improving, then you'll become a better person. That's what I think when I think of it. Maybe because forward is the only way you can go…" Ruby shrugged. "Anyway, what I'm getting at is that you shouldn't let fear stop you. If it seems too much, take a deep breath." _I hope I said something worthwhile in that,_ she worried, close to rambling during that.

She was pleased when Bilbo seemed to relax slightly and was thinking. After a moment, Bilbo shook himself and snapped back into his normal 'Bilbo' attitude. "Well, I'd much prefer a good meal and a decent nights rest, thank you very much."

"You and me both," Ruby agreed, stifling a yawn as she was reminded of how tired she was. "Gandalf seems to know where we're going, so maybe we'll have an actual bed tonight."

"Oh I'd love that… do you… feel that?" Bilbo asked, suddenly frowning. "I can feel something different now that we're down here."

Ruby tried to feel what Bilbo was and… she _did_ feel something different. It was a small tingle she couldn't place, but not annoying or irritating, but comforting. She felt something inside of her react, as if it were waking up from a long rest. It felt… almost familiar… "Yeah, I can feel it," she said.

"It feels like… well it feels like magic," Bilbo said.

"That's because that is exactly what it is," Gandalf said looking behind him at the pair, overhearing their conversation. "Very powerful magic." Ruby's eyes grew a little wider at that and fell silent, waiting to see where they were going.

The tunnel path continued on for some time but thankfully was lit well enough by cracks in the ceiling, or the upper ground in this case. Eventually, the tunnel turned into a tight ravine and there was continuous light, though the path got a little cramped at times. And being in this close proximity to the Dwarves alerted Ruby as to how much of a shower they all needed. Out of curiosity, she lifted up her arm and took a sniff. "Gack!" _Oh that was a mistake. I need a shower soon._

Eventually the path opened up to a small waterfall running down some rock shelves that looked almost like steps. The running water was peaceful, so Ruby snuck her hands into it to slightly wash them off. The mountain water felt cool and nice on her hands as she continued, rubbing them. She noticed the Dwarves had stopped for some reason and she looked up. Her silver eyes widened.

"Oh _wow_."

The gasp accidentally slipped past her mouth, though it was what she was thinking.

On the other side of a valley, made by a large waterfall, stood a mountain village, though that label didn't do it near enough justice. The buildings were elegant and molded into the environment around them, arching above natural rock formations and around trees, also letting numerous streams pass under the houses and turn into waterfalls that joined at the bottom of the valley into a river. While she couldn't see the details, the designs of the houses looked almost otherworldly in their appearance.

The very air had changed as well. Ruby felt at ease and content, and could sense the agelessness of the valley, the peacefulness that surrounded her.

Ruby jumped, startled, when Gandalf suddenly spoke from next to her. "The Valley of Imladris. In the common tongue, it's known by another name."

"Rivendell," Bilbo distractedly said, feeling the same awe that Ruby did.

The Dwarves looked amongst each other, but did not react, or voice anything loudly. "Here lies the Last Homely House East of the sea," Gandalf finished.

Thorin however looked ready to continue their last 'conversation'. "This was your plan all along. To seek refuge with our enemy," he accused Gandalf. _Enemy? They helped us back there,_ Ruby thought.

"You have no enemies here, Thorin Oakenshield," Gandalf admonished the Dwarf. The only ill will to be found in this valley is that which you bring yourself."

"You think the Elves will give our quest their blessing?" Thorin questioned. "They will try to stop us."

"Of course they will." _Wait, what?_ "But we have questions that need to be answered," Gandalf stated. There was a pause, then Thorin sighed in defeat, knowing that Gandalf was right.

"So just don't tell them," Ruby quickly said, as if it were the simplest solution.

"Unfortunately the Lord of Rivendell is too old and too wise to be blinded in such a manner, Miss Rose," Gandalf said, turning to the redhead. "Though it would be preferable not state our intentions or the manner of our quest outright, if at all possible," he admitted. "If we are to be successful, this will need to be handled with tact. And respect. And no small degree of charm. Which is why you will leave the talking to me." Ruby almost snorted at the delivery despite expecting Gandalf to say that.

Thorin gave a harsh sigh, but stepped out of the way for Gandalf to pass. Gandalf nodded and took the lead. "Come along now, despite any misconceptions you may have, the Elves will offer food and bed for us. Something I know you all want." Begrudgingly, the Dwarves followed him down the path single-file. Ruby joined near the end, but was looking almost everywhere except the path.

 _I thought the Shire was pretty, but this is something else! And with the setting sun the valley has a golden glow to everything. Though I bet I'm sticking out with my bright red cloak. There's nothing like this back home that I know of. Almost makes me wish I could stay here._ That thought made her sad, knowing that she had to leave, but also not wanting too. _It'll happen eventually, I've been gone a while. I'll get back some time._

Several minutes passed as they walked down the path and came to a stone bridge, passing overhead of a stream. They all walked by tow statues of armored warriors holding spears to a small circular area. Ruby was struck by the contrast between the Companies' appearance and the place they were at. They were grungy and worn, while this place looked clean and… refined. I feel so out of place right now.

The Dwarves definitely felt it as they meandered about on the platform, unsure as to what they needed to do. Thorin and Dwalin looked the most on edge, keeping themselves tense. Ruby looked up at some movement as a man came down the stairs to greet them. "Mithrandir," the man- the Elf, Ruby realized once she saw his pointed ears and ageless look- said. He was dressed in dark colors, but natural browns and lilacs. He also had a headpiece that reminded Ruby of Pyrrha's, just more viney and intertwining, rather than a single metal piece.

Gandalf turned around and seemed pleased to see the Elf. "Ah. Lindir." The Elf gave a gesture of greeting, placing a hand over his heart and then moving his hand out in front. _Wait, is Gandalf's name really Mithrandy-whatsit?_ Ruby was confused.

Then the Elf started talking, though it was in a completely different language Ruby never heard before. It flowed and sounded soothing, but Ruby didn't understand a word of it. Gandalf however replied in the common tongue. "I must speak with Lord Elrond."

"My Lord Elrond is not here," the Elf, Lindir, replied.

"Not here? Where is he?" Gandalf questioned.

Before there was an answer, the same horn from before sounded from behind Ruby, causing her to turn around to see what was causing it. She saw that there was a line of horse riders coming down a different path they took, all armored and armed. But they were all coming quite fast at them.

Thorin shouted something in Dwarvish then said, "Close ranks!" Ruby felt someone grab her shoulder and pull her into the hastily made defensive circle the Dwarves made. _Whoa, what? Are we fighting? No! No no no no no we don't need to!_ She looked out past the growling Dwarves and saw that the riders had made two rings around them, each moving in opposite directions. But she saw that they were making no hostile moves and were just examining the posturing Dwarves, and actually slowed to a halt a moment later.

"Gandalf!" One of the Elves said. Ruby looked over at the one that spoke. He looked slightly older and had long straight brown hair and was wearing dark auburn armor that was styled like the statues, seemingly crossing over and under each respective plate. On his head was another headpiece, a bit more angular than the first Elf's.

"Lord Elrond," Gandalf said in greeting. It sounded like a meeting between two old friends. "Mellon nin." Gandalf said, in the other language, which Ruby guessed as Elvish. Gandalf continued in the same language, and then Elrond replied back in the same language. The Elf dismounted and went over to Gandalf, giving him a 'man-hug', as both Tai and Qrow would call it.

Elrond then spoke in the common tongue. "Strange for Orcs to come so close to our borders." He said that in an offhand tone, while holding up a weapon Ruby recognized as an Orc blade, then handed it to Lindir. "Something, or someone, has drawn them near."

"Ah, that may have been us," Gandalf said, gesturing to the Company. Elrond looked over the Company and Ruby felt his eyes linger on her, expressing confusion, before moving on. Ruby was confused as well, before she realized something. _I'm the only human, and the only girl in the group, and am also the tallest for once… except when Weiss isn't wearing those cheating heels of hers to make her taller._

Thorin stepped forward and Elrond looked upon him. "Welcome, Thorin, son of Thrain."

"I do not believe we have met," Thorin said in lieu of a greeting.

"You have your grandfather's bearing," Elrond said in explanation. "I knew Thror when he ruled Under the Mountain." _How old is Elrond? He looks like a middle aged man but from what I remember the Lonely Mountain was taken abound 200 years ago, so how- oh, right. Elf. Immortal._ Even before she came to this world, she had read of fairy tales where Elves were immortal. Of course there were other tales that weren't as flattering to the species, but that was neither here nor there.

"Indeed? He made no mention of you," Thorin commented, though the words had an accusatory undertone to them, something that Elrond seemed to pick up on as he narrowed his eyes and took a breath.

Elrond spoke a long line of Elvish, and Ruby couldn't make heads or tails of if it were friendly or not. "What's he saying?" Gloin asked. "Does he offer us insult?" The Dwarves started to get railed up and Ruby just sighed to herself. _Why are they always eager to fight friendlies?_

"No, Master Gloin, he's offering you food," Gandalf quickly said to diffuse the tension.

At that, there was a beat, and the Dwarves then started muttering to themselves and Ruby had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at their paranoia. After they were done, Gloin spoke up again. "Ah, well, in tha't case, lead on." Then the Dwarves started moving up the steps, Ruby and Bilbo following them. Ruby noticed that the other riders had left before then.

When they got to the top of the stairs they followed Elrond until he stopped at one of the larger houses. He turned to the company and gestured inside. "This will be where you may rest and keep your gear here. Even for those as strong as you it would be a relief to lighten yourselves of your burdens. Food will be ready for you shortly, and I'll have more beds by nightfall," Elrond said. The Dwarves gave affirmative grunts and moved past him inside, beginning to unload themselves noisily. Elrond then went over to Ruby before she could enter.

"Might I know your name? It is uncommon for a human to be traveling with Dwarves, let alone a young girl to be with such an armored group."

"Oh, my name's Ruby Rose. And it's no big deal, I'm as armed as they are. Plus I drink milk," Ruby said, but then froze when her mind caught up with her words. _I did not just say that to an Elven lord_. She could feel herself turning as red as her namesake.

Elrond had an embarrassingly amused smile on his face as he looked down at the sword on her waist. "I see," he neutrally said, though Ruby could hear the doubt in his voice about her armed claim.

Thankfully, before she stuck her foot further into her mouth, Gandalf came to her rescue. "I believe questions can wait for another time," he said calmly. "We are all tired and would like to fill our bellies before we retire for the night."

"Of course, forgive me," Elrond said with a nod to Ruby. "I originally wished to ask you if you would prefer a room to yourself, as is appropriate for a young lady like yourself.

 _A room. To myself. Without the smell of Dwarves and their snoring._ "Yes please!" She all but begged.

Elrond almost laughed at her eagerness. "It will be done. Now excuse me, I must make sure the cooks know that we have guests." He looked at Gandalf and Ruby saw him give the Wizard a look that she didn't know what it meant before he left. _Oh well,_ she thought to herself as she went inside.

It was an empty but large house, and had plenty of space, which the Dwarves had taken over already. Ruby merely put her Beacon backpack near to door so she could get it later when she moved.

With nothing to do there, she went back outside and waited for the company to get ready. She sighed and fiddled with the pummel of her short sword, which was still on her hip and more assessable than Crescent Rose, which she still had on her. _Stay awake for just a couple more hours, you can do it Ruby. You've done it before… though not exactly like this,_ she stifled a yawn.

A few minutes later the Dwarves piled out and they were greeted by an Elf who led them to an outdoor circular platform. It had a stone pedestal in the center and some low tables and cushions, though there was a traditional table with some chairs, but it looked off limits. _Huh, I guess it's a cultural thing to eat like this_ , Ruby thought as she took a seat at a plate, the Dwarves and Bilbo doing the same. Though once again there was no sign of Gandalf. _It's starting to become a trend,_ Ruby realized.

A couple finely dressed Elves stepped out and started to lay out food for all of them. Ruby noticed a theme as most of the food was plants, a vegetarian dinner, though there were some cheeses and bread food, along with some wine. But the thing that got Ruby's attention was…

"Chocolate!" Ruby reached over and grabbed a handful of the sweets and munched down on them, a loud moan escaping her, as she tasted the chocolate on her tongue. _It's been far too long!_ She opened her eyes (when did they close?) and saw that many of the Dwarves were looking at her with amused expressions. Heat started to rise up her cheeks. " _Zowwy_ ," she swallowed, "It's been a while since I had chocolate." Ducking her head, she avoided eye contact as she started to fill up her plate with the food available, ignoring the playful laughter of the Dwarves

Music started to play, with an Elf playing a wood flute and a few on harps and other string instruments. Ruby became aware of the Dwarves grumblings about the food being offered, mainly boiled down to 'no meat' and Ori's "I don't like green food." Ruby found the music peaceful, but saw that the Dwarves didn't particularly care for it. She noticed that Gandalf and Thorin had reappeared, with Elrond in different robes, all taking a seat at the actual table.

"Can't say I fancy Elf maids myself," Kili suddenly said, though keeping his voice down, but it caught Ruby's attention because it came out of the blue for her. She saw that Dwalin was giving Kili a hard stare for some reason. "Too thin. They're all high cheekbones and creamy skin. Not enough facial hair for me…" Kili took a glance at an Elf walking behind him. "Although, that one there's not bad." Kili said with a weird wink at Dwalin and continued staring.

"Uhh, about that…" Ruby started, noticing the problem from her angle.

"That's not an Elf maid," Dwalin pointed out. Sure enough the Elf turned around and they could see that _she_ was a _he_ in this case. _Though I don't mind,_ a part of Ruby's mind said… which oddly sounded a bit like Yang.

Kili looked devastated and Dwalin rubbed it in by giving a return wink. Ruby started laughing along with the other Dwarves at the youngest's expense. After she stopped she continued eating. While it wasn't her normal choice of food, it was better than nothing, though she stayed away from the leafy stuff. Unfortunately for her, there wasn't any water, only wine, and she was too shy to ask for it.

She stared into the purple-red liquid in her goblet, debating to herself. _I'm too young to drink any alcohol, but there's nothing else… maybe I could try a sip?_ She slowly brought it up and took a sip. It was fruity, though very bitter for her. _Hmm..._ Undecided, she took a second sip and the bitterness won out. _Ech, nope._ She put the glass down and looked over at one of the Elves, feeling that her shyness was overridden by her thirst. Feeling eyes on her, the Elf lady came forward and knelt next to her. "Is something the matter?"

"Ah, yes, could I just have water, please?" Ruby made sure to get her puppy eyes working.

The Elf lady faltered for a second and then smiled, "Why of course!" She stood up and went inside, then came back out a minute later with a pitcher of water and a second cup. "For you."

Ruby took them. "Thank you so much," Ruby said, and filled up the cup and swigged it down, swishing it around to get the wine taste out of her mouth. _How can adults drink this so often?_

During a lull in the music, Ruby could hear a bit of the conversation going on at the high table as she was calling it in her head. The swords that Thorin and Gandalf apparently had names, which pleased a part of Ruby. _That's good. Weapons should have names… unless they're those crappy factory made weapons like the White Fang or the Atlas soldiers have, though the new guns they have are pretty sleek looking._

 _Apparently their swords are famous… I wonder if the sword I found has a name,_ Ruby wondered as she looked at the sheathed short sword still on her waist, _though I wouldn't trade Crescent Rose for anything._

"I wouldn't bother laddie," Balin said to Bilbo, who was looking at something in his lap. "Swords are named for the great deeds they do in war." _Ah, he must be looking at the sword he got too._

"What are you saying, my sword hasn't seen battle?" Bilbo asked, sounding disheartened.

"I'm not actually sure it is a sword. More of a letter opener really," Balin bluntly said to Bilbo's dismayed face.

"Well, maybe you can come up with a name for it," Ruby suggested, "like I did for Crescent Rose. Just pick a name that fits."

"Yeah, but um, I haven't used it yet," Bilbo pointed out.

Ruby paused for a second. "Yet," she used his own word against him.

Bilbo sighed, and then shrugged. "So what are you going to name your new sword?"

Ruby tilted it upwards and saw the sheath with the flowing script on it. The grip was tinted red and black metal and leather. "I dunno. I also haven't used it yet either. But there's writing on the blade, so maybe I'll get one of the Elves to read it and see if it has its name on it."

Ruby was distracted when she saw Thorin walk by, clearly agitated. She mentally sighed. _What set him off this time?_ She saw that Gandalf was eating, but Elrond was not. _Who knows?_ She kept eating, but the Dwarves were becoming more animated and raucous.

Eventually Nori got fed up with the music playing and loudly said to the harpist, "Change the tune, why don't you? I feel like I'm at a funeral."

"Did somebody die?" Oin asked, not being able to hear properly.

"Alright lads," Bofur said, "there's only one thing for it!" He stood up, clanking some dishes, and then stepped up onto the pillar in the center and started a tune.

 _~"Thereeeee's aaaaaaaaan_

 _inn, there's an inn, there's a merry old inn_

 _beneath an old grey hill."~_

At this point all the Dwarves started singing along, and Ruby smiled at the energetic tune. Not that she disliked the music before, but it was a welcome change that added some life to the dinner. Plus it kept her awake.

 _~"And there they brew a beer so brown_

 _that the Man in the Moon himself came down_

 _one night to drink his fill."~_

It was at this point however that the Dwarves started throwing food around and Ruby muttered to herself, "Really?" _Why do they feel the need to throw food around almost every time we sit down for a meal?_

 _~"Ohhhh, the ostler has a tipsy cat_

 _that plays a five-stringed fiddle;_

 _And up and down he saws his bow_

 _Now squeaking hiiiiiiigh, now purrrring low,_

 _Now sawing in the middle."~_

Ruby mirrored the distain the Elves portrayed at the growing crudeness of the Dwarves as the flinging food started to fly in earnest. She quickly reached up and caught a loaf that was going to go sailing by her and hit the Elf that helped her earlier. She turned and gave the Elf a sheepish, apologetic look before something splatted against the back of her head. She jerked around and a lettuce leaf came off, and she glared around at the tables, since it was impossible to determine who threw it.

 _~"So the cat on the fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,_

 _a jig that would wake the dead:_

 _He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,_

 _While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon:_

 _'It's after three!' he said."~_

The Dwarves laughed in merriment at the end of the song, more food flying everywhere. Ruby was partly torn: she liked the song, but she hated how the Dwarves were wasting food that they had been given, since they were guests. It annoyed her how disrespectful the Dwarves were being, even though she knew their personalities by now. _I think I'm done with this,_ she thought as she grabbed one last bite of cake and a slice of cheese, then stood up, dodging food that was still being thrown and retreated to the edge of the platform. She noticed Thorin was still there, watching the proceedings with an amused smile, but doing nothing to stop it.

 _Yeah, I'm glad I have a room to myself tonight._ Sighing to herself she nibbled on the cheese slice as she just waited around, awkwardly hanging out without being part of the group. A minute later she thought, _This reminds me too much of my first year at Signal…_ Ruby knew she wasn't the most social, often only being able to hold a conversation if it included weapons. She'd gotten better since coming to Beacon and Teams RWBY and JNPR were formed… not _great_ , but better.

Thankfully the dinner seemed to break up a few minutes later as the sun seemed to be on its last legs. The Dwarves started filing out, some (Bombur) staying behind to eat a little bit more. Bilbo came out and made his way hurriedly over to her once he saw Ruby, and let out a big sigh of relief that he was out of here. Ruby nodded in total agreement, no words needed. The Dwarves eventually left, heading back to where they were staying.

In time, Elrond and Gandalf came out as well, but Gandalf stopped and looked at Ruby and Bilbo, motioning for them to come over before they could leave. Ruby was a bit surprised, but walked over with Bilbo following. Thorin and Balin quickly joined them from where they were talking quietly off to the side.

"Well now, since we have all eaten we can move on to business," Gandalf said to those gathered. The sun had set quickly and it was nighttime, but the world seemed to be glowing a blue-silver from the moon the light of which was reflected from some of the buildings' architecture, highlighted by the barely flickering yellow-orange of the candles and lamps that had somehow been lit, giving Rivendell a mystical appearance to Ruby that only heightened her love of the valley.

"Indeed," Elrond said, "I am very curious as to why such a varied group is traveling along dangerous roads, and what business they have."

"We are just travelers," Thorin gruffly said, earning a look from Bilbo, Ruby, and Gandalf. _Why are you being difficult?_ That was one of the many thoughts Ruby had, but felt that any input she had was not warranted. _Why am I even here right now? I think Bilbo is thinking the same thing._

"If you are 'just travelers' then, why was there an Orc pack hunting you just beyond our borders? They know this land is under our protection and have never dared venture that far in many years. I do not think that it is a coincidence that the grandson of Thrór," Elrond said directly to Thorin, "would be waylaid by Orcs as he travels on unknown business," Elrond probed.

"Well you know how Orcs are, m'Lord," Balin said, covering for the Company. "Vicious; once they find prey they don't like to give up till they've hunted it down."

"They do not," Elrond agreed. "But I do not think that is the case. If your business is so dire that such cretin pursue you in broad daylight into our borders, and further that Mithrandir feels he must accompany you, there is something else at work."

"There is," Gandalf actually admitted after a pause.

"Gandalf!" Thorin said sharply, feeling that some trust had been betrayed.

"Oh, you might as well just ask him," Gandalf said, cutting through the word games. "We need to know what's on that map. It could hold the key to a discovery that could benefit us." _Oh, right, I'd almost forgotten about the map he had,_ Ruby suddenly remembered from what felt like a long time ago at Bilbo's house. _That and the key._

"Our business is no concern of Elves," Thorin said. "They did not help us when we needed it," he said, as if that decided things.

"For goodness sake Thorin, show him the map," Gandalf said, frustrated with Thorin. "Let Lord Elrond help _now_."

"It is the legacy of my people. It is mine to protect, as are its secrets. I will not let it fall into the wrong hands," Thorin refused to budge.

"Save me from the stubbornness of Dwarves," Gandalf exclaimed, his frustration boiling over, with Ruby internally agreeing. "Your pride will be your downfall. You stand here in the presence of one of the few in Middle-Earth who can read that map. Show it to Lord Elrond."

Ruby shifted uneasily, waiting for Thorin's decision. She could feel the tension in the air.

There was some hesitation, but eventually Thorin reached inside his coat and brought out the map. "Thorin no," Balin said, trying to stop Thorin from handing it over, but he brushed past the old Dwarf and handed the folded paper to Elrond, who took it with respect.

Elrond unfolded the map and looked at it, then looked up in mild surprise. "Erebor. What is your interest in this map?"

Thorin took a breath to speak, but then Gandalf interrupted. "It's mainly academic. As you know this sort of artifact sometimes contains hidden text, the message forgotten through time, secrets lost." Elrond gave Gandalf a glance before he returned to examining the map. "You still read ancient Dwarvish, do you not?"

Elrond didn't respond and looked up at the moonlight before looking at the paper from different angles. Then he uttered something in Elvish.

"Moon runes?" Gandalf translated. "Of course." He looked over at her and Bilbo and said matter-of-factly, "An easy thing to miss." _What are moon runes,_ was the obvious question Ruby had.

"Well in this case that is true," Elrond said. "Moon runes are rune-letters, but written with a silver pen and special ink mixed with rare powdered gems, and can only be read by the light of a moon of the same shape and season as the day on which they were written."

"Oh, well, that's helpful to know," Bilbo commented to himself, though everyone could hear it, half meaning what he said. _Well it_ is _helpful, but it's almost like you need to know what the moon was like and what season it was written in in the first place so you could even read it._ Then she got to thinking, her curiosity wandering. _I wonder if it's possible to make moon runes with Dust and a silver pen, or even if they'll work with the moon back in Remnant, with it being, y'know, broken._

"Can you read them?" Thorin asked the real question.

Elrond glanced at him and said, "We shall see. Follow me." He turned and started walking along one of the paths through Rivendell, all of them following, even though Ruby didn't know why she still was with them. _I've literally contributed nothing so far._

They followed Elrond through Rivendell and up a path on the valley's mountainside until they came to a short tunnel, which came out to a platform with interweaving designs carved in the rock, under an overhang. Several waterfalls were falling past them, once again giving Ruby a feeling of otherworldness. There was a translucent white crystal dais at the edge of the platform. Elrond headed towards it and held the map up to the moonlight.

"I can tell the runes want to be read," he said, "so it appears these runes were written on a Midsummer's Eve by the light of a crescent moon… nearly 200 years ago from the age of the map." He placed the map on the crystal, and glanced at Thorin. "It would seem you were meant to come to Rivendell. Fate is with you Thorin Oakenshield; the same moon shines upon us tonight." _How does he know that?_ Ruby wondered. _Oh well, he's the expert. Maybe there was a little tell? Or magic?_

Ruby noticed the clouds had moved away and let the crescent moon shine upon them through the waterfall. The novelty of a complete moon (even if she couldn't see it fully tonight) still got to her sometimes, instinctively expecting to see the broken pieces of her moon. Another thing was that the moon here in Middle-Earth seemed to be father away, and thus smaller. Even over a month after arriving here, Ruby still thought it odd… which was understandable considering she had fifteen years before then of Remnant's broken moon, which she considered normal.

She was drawn back to the pedestal when the moonlight reflected out of it straight up, creating a soft pale silver beam to the ceiling of the outcrop. Like a moth to a light, she found herself closer to the dais and saw glowing angular runes appeared on the map with an quiet, oddly familiar humming sound that she couldn't place.

Elrond started reading. "Stand by the gray stone when the thrush knocks and the setting sun with the last light of Durin's Day will shine upon the keyhole."

"Durin's Day?" Bilbo asked, a question Ruby also had as well.

"It is the start of the Dwarves' new year," Gandalf explained, "when the last moon of autumn and the first sun of winter appear in the sky together."

 _I've heard the name several times before… isn't that one of the Dwarven lines?_ She tried to recall something she heard a while ago. _So Durin is an important figure for the Dwarves then._

"This is ill news," Thorin said. "Summer is passing. Durin's Day will soon be upon us."

"We still have time," Balin said, reassuringly.

"Time? For what?" Bilbo asked.

""To find the keyhole/entrance."" Ruby and Balin both spoke at the same time, startling the other. After a moment, Ruby blushed at their looks but shrugged. _Even I could see where that was leading._

"If what the map says is true, we have to be standing in exactly the right spot at exactly the right time," Balin continued. "Then, and only then, can the door be opened."

"So this is your purpose, to enter the mountain?" Elrond suddenly questioned. Ruby suddenly felt nervous since Elrond figured it out and waited to see what would come.

"What of it?" Thorin challenged.

"There are some who would not deem it wise," Elrond warned Thorin as the Dwarf took the map back.

"What do you mean?" Gandalf suddenly asked.

"You are not the only guardian to stand watch over Middle-Earth," Elrond cryptically said, and turned away, leaving the group behind to walk down themselves. Thorin and Balin shared a look before heading off themselves, leaving Bilbo, Gandalf, and Ruby up there. Gandalf was pensive, looking off into the distance after Elrond's last words.

" _Yaaaaaaaahhh_ …" Ruby blinked blurrily as that yawn escaped, surprising her. "Sorry," she muttered when the other two looked at her, "I'm very tired."

Gandalf chuckled. "It's been a long day, and we all deserve a little rest. Off you go, both of you," he said with a smile. "Leave an old man to his thoughts."

Ruby sleepily shrugged and walked down the path, Bilbo next to her. Then Ruby stopped before her brain caught up with her. "What?" Bilbo asked, confused at her sudden stoppage.

"Ah, one moment," Ruby doubled back and slipped her Scroll out of her pouch and turned it on. Once the screen lit up she brought the camera function up again and snapped a picture of the moonlit mystical scenery, then a picture of Rivendell below. _Don't know if I'll see this sight again,_ Ruby thought as she stepped back from the edge away from a curious Gandalf back to Bilbo. "Sorry, I just wanted to take a picture," she said to Bilbo and showed him the shots she took. _I feel a little bit like Velvet._

"That's incredible," Bilbo said, eyes wide as he looked at the screen. "I know that you've shown us this before, but… it's astounding! Your world must be an amazing place…" Bilbo sounded a little wistful.

"It is, but it could be better," Ruby thought, thinking about the Grimm, the White Fang, Roman Torchwick... "It's… like Middle-Earth. Both are amazing, but could be better since there're trolls and Orcs here, and Grimm and criminals there. I grew up on a small island, did I tell you that? I've never been far away from it, so being here is… just… wow," she finished, kinda lamely. _Blame it on my tiredness._

Bilbo was silent, but eventually asked, "Do… you miss your home?"

Ruby nodded tiredly, "Yep. All the time. But I'm enjoying it here when, y'know, we're not getting attacked or I'm almost asleep." She punctuated that with another yawn. _Waking up tomorrow's going to be a pain without coffee. Tea is nice, but doesn't have the kick coffee does- another something I've been missing here._

They had walked back down to the main buildings and suddenly Ruby realized she didn't know where she was staying. _I never did get around to asking Elr- Lord Elrond where I would be sleeping. And I really don't want to deal with the Dwarves tonight. I want to_ sleep _._

As if by a godsend, a beautiful, dark-haired Elf lady came up to them. "Ruby Rose, Bilbo Baggins?" She inquired.

"Ah, yep, that's us," Ruby said.

She smiled, "My father asked me to show you to your rooms." _Oh thank you._

"Thank you, Miss…?" Bilbo asked.

The Elf smiled, "Arwen." She gestured inward, her dress shimmering in the light from the movement. "Come, it's just this way." She turned and soon led them to two separate open aired rooms that were next to each other. Each had a bed Ruby just wanted to faceplant into and never get up from, but she held off for the moment. "Here's your rooms while you're here in Rivendell," Arwen said.

"Thank you," Ruby said with a sleepy bow. "Ah, I'll be right back. I need to get my stuff from the Companies' room." With an understanding nod from Arwen, Ruby made her way to the Dwarves' room (as it was easy to find since they weren't all that quiet) and grabbed her backpack from where she left it without talking to anyone, then came back. Bilbo was gone -probably into his room- but Arwen was still there, waiting

"Thank you for letting us stay here," Ruby said with a smile, wanting to thank their hosts, since most of the Dwarves probably wouldn't.

Arwen gave a small bow, "You are our guests and we won't turn any away… even if they are… overly lively," she said, trying to find the polite words. "I pity you for having to travel with them," she added in a conspiratorial and sympathetic tone.

Ruby shrugged. "It's nice to have a break from them for a night," she agreed.

Arwen nodded and said, "Ala lómë."

While she didn't know elvish, Ruby could guess the meaning and decided to repeat it back. "Ala loh- lóme? Ala lómë." _I hope I said that right…_

Arwen smiled, "A little more stress on the ë, but yes. Means 'Good night'."

"Ah, thank you. Good night," Ruby said. Arwen turned away with another soft smile and Ruby went inside, repeating the little bit of elvish she just learned to herself a couple of times. _Ah well, I'll try again tomorrow._ She took off her weapons and laid them down next to the bed, then put her backpack there as well, taking out her journal. She put it on the bed table along with the little things from her pockets, including her Scroll.

She paused when she saw a nightgown on the bed. She grabbed it and looked at it, rubbing the cloth in her hand. _Oh, I love the feeling of the cloth, but it's the wrong color- blue. I don't do blue. But guests can't really complain about free stuff,_ she decided as she started stripping down, vowing to clean herself tomorrow and her clothes. She quickly changed into the gown and crawled into the bed with a soft groan of finally being able to rest.

Before she got too comfortable, she picked up her Scroll and looked at the power. 59 _%. Ugh. No, that's fine. I still have some power. I'll remind myself to take some pictures in the morning, and update my journal,_ Ruby thought. She went through her files and then hit the play button on the video she had pulled up, then placed the Scroll on the bed table, letting the audio lull her to sleep, knowing her Scroll would turn off after a minute of non-usage to conserve power.

 _~"Far over the Misty Mountains cold,_

 _To dungeons deep, and caverns old…"~_

She was asleep before the song was a quarter over.

* * *

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

* * *

Many miles away, at a ruined Man structure, Yazneg was terrified of his failure. He wouldn't admit it, but the wargs made him pause, knowing a single word from his Master would make them leap upon him, tearing him to bits more painfully than the magic weapon that killed his first warg mount and tore through his forearm. Said forearm was bandaged as well as possible, but the wound was there, allowing his black blood to slowly seep through the cloth.

He was lucky there was a riderless Warg that he used to escape before the Elves caught him. But more fear came from how he was going to tell his Master about the one who wielded that weapon.

The Masters' albino warg growled at him as he approached, the Master's pale, scarred body overlooking the northern lands. But despite the fear he felt, he needed to tell the Master of the mission and his discovery. _"The Dwarves, Master…"_ he said in their native tongue, called Black Speech by Man, _"we lost them."_ He almost yelped when a displeased growl reverberated through the Wargs. _"Ambushed by Elvish filth, we were-"_ he tried to explain.

 _"I don't want excuses,"_ the Master, Azog, cut him off, the disgust clear of his failure, turning around and walking closer. _"I want the head of the Dwarf King!"_

 _"We were outnumbered, and the Dwarves had a She-Human that wielded a magic weapon! It could shoot loud magic and blasted Wargs apart! She was a Silver-Eyer!"_ he rushed out. The group froze, and even his Master seemed concerned.

 _"Are you sure?"_ The question held a promise of instant death if he were deceiving him.

The threat of a Silver-Eyer was the highest... Too many had been slain when an Eyer stood in their way. Fortunately the Eyers were few in number and far between, having the decency to die before they could pass on their eyes to their spawn, fading through time as they were targeted mercilessly, until they became mere stories that Humans told each other to cling to their fleeting hope. The last Silver-Eyer died over 900 years ago, but not before he helped bring down the great Kingdom of Angmar and then held his own against the Witch-King in single combat for three days. Such was the threat of these warriors.

But his bloodline died as all did. There were none left.

Until this one appeared from no-where.

 _"Yes, Master,"_ Yazneg gulped, confirming the Eyer's existence.

Azog growled and a look of disgust was on his face as he thought for a moment. _"The She-Human is nothing. She will die with the rest of them when our Master attacks. And she can not protect the Dwarf King from my wrath!_

 _"But… we need to be prepared. Our Master knows how to end Silver-Eyers. He will give us the tools to end this Silver-Eyer She-Human."_ Azog came closer, a sneer on his face. _"But you, your failure will cost you your life."_ Azog put his flesh hand on Yazneg's head, caressing it, and Yazneg knew his fate had been decided.

Then his Master's metal arm seized his throat, a couple of claws piercing his throat, slowly filling his lungs with blood with each gasp. A look of disgust and rage was on his Master's face. _"We make haste to Dol Guldur!"_ Azog roared, ordering them all.

Then Yazneg was thrown away and the wargs were set upon him.

He was right.

The wargs were more painful that the She-Human's weapon.

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* * *

 **Galen: Hey! I'm back again like I said before the new year. This has been a long time coming but at least it's not _On The Road, Far From Home_ delayed... heh heh... Honestly I don't know why- actually I do know why it took a while, I was suffering a little bit of burn out, and also was working on other stories and got distracted. **

**Ruby: Sure, keep telling yourself that Galen.**

 **G: Oi, do have any idea how hard it is to find a reliable Dwarvish translator? Dang near impossible and the most reasonable one is... hard to navigate. That threw me off a bit, so in all honesty don't expect long sentences in Dwarvish... possibly elvish too.**

 **R: Uh-huh. I know it's just your lazy personality that halted this. But anyway, welcome back everyone! And I want to give everyone a big hug and a cookie for sticking with this lug's-**

 **G: Oi!**

 **R: -update schedule, or lack thereof. We've reached over 200 Favorites for this story! And since the last update, Volume 3 of RWBY came and went... (G: sorry, Ruby had a small breakdown. Should be back in a moment)... sorry. And Volume 4 just released Chapter 8. A lot has happened in hose months.**

 **G: Things'll be aright Ruby. Now I am safe to say that the story will not be affected by events that happen in RWBY. I may reference some things, but that's about it.  
And for an important note: I said it before but this IS a story where a character gets shoved into a different world and events more-or-less happen the same way. But I will emphasize the 'less' part because there _will_ be changes, but I like a slow build up with reasonable changes, not just a lot of things happening at once that come out of left field (i.e. Volume 3, Chapter 6). This story is what it is, and only minor changes may be made. That last scene with the Orcs almost got cut, but I had a brainstorm at about 1:30 this morning to re-write it and make it work... (smiles ****evilly) and because of Ruby's appearance, things are changing...**

 **R: _Oooo_ kay... I don't like the sound of that... But anyway, with that out of the way, there's a super sized cookie that I want to give to Mastermind4892 for their amazing review. It made us feel really appreciated and honestly, it was a major reason Galen wanted to continue writing this, or rather a major motivator to push this out. So thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou! **

**G: All this being said, even after I edited this, I needed to move a lot of it into the next chapter otherwise this one would've been far too long. I don't want the actual content chapter going over 15,000 words if I can help it, so because of that, Chapter 4 will be coming out in at most three months (but hopefully less).**

 **R: So hows that for a new years eve gift? A new RWBY episode, a new chapter, and the promise of another one coming soon- and it's not just Galen making an empty promise, I've seen him start writing the next chapter already.**

 **G: And speaking of gifts, another fellow Fanfiction writer, moviedragon009, updated their LOTR/Frozen x-over titled _Frost Along the Road_ today as well, so after you're done with this, hop on over at read that one!**

 **R: So yeah! That's about it, so we'll see you next time for Chapter 4- Where the Road Takes Us! And you'll find out the name for my sword then!**

 **G: See you later! Don't forget to Read, Review, Favorite, and Follow!**

 **-OrangeGalen**

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Chapter length: 13,076


	4. Where the Road Takes Us

**I do not own RWBY or any Tolkien related material, and have no claim on either of them. The idea for this story is mine and is purely for fun.**

 **Now, 1 day short of a full year, enjoy the chapter.**

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* * *

Rivendell in the morning was everything Ruby had hoped it would be. Golden sunlight streamed down through the rafters of the buildings, and the trees seemed to absorb the golden light, transforming the natural shades of green and brown into gilded leaves and bark. The buildings were the same, but with an added shade of light brown in addition to all the other colors. And Ruby planned on snapping pictures of it all on her Scroll.

She had slept amazingly, despite the room being open to the night air with only thin drapes covering the windows- not that it would have bothered her with the surprisingly warm blankets she had. Thinking on it, she figured it was entirely possible there was some ambient magic in the valley that kept the rooms from becoming frigid at night, making it the most comfortable sleep she had in a while… pretty much since she arrive here in Middle-Earth.

Ruby had woken up in the middle of the morning, cradling the velvety blankets, feeling refreshed after her mind briefly lingered in sleep mode. It was a rare feeling, as usually she wasn't this awake without at least a single cup of coffee. But she was, and she felt like she could make the most out of the day whilst still enjoying herself and relaxing.

 _It's strange, the paradox of wanting to work and rest at the same time,_ Ruby thought to herself as she, almost unwillingly, changed into her dirty normal combat outfit, since she had nothing else decent (or more importantly, _clean_ ) to wear. _Though first thing's first, I want to eat, and then I'll see if I can't wash off and get my clothes washed as well. Maybe I can ask if I could get a spare set of girl clothes that are my size._

Ruby went over to the bed table and picked up her Scroll and journal. _I've been forgetting to write in it for a while. Granted, the last two-ish days were pretty busy and not much happened previously before the trolls… man, that feels like it happened ages ago. I'll write what I can remember while I'm eating._

Tucking her journal under her arm and a pen in her annoying girl pocket, Ruby ventured out of her room, taking her time and the scenic route to where they ate last night, capturing photos of anything that caught her interest. Which was pretty much everything. Her photo shoot was made a little bit more challenging by only using one hand since she didn't want to drop her book.

Eventually she found her way to the dining area and found 9 of the 13 Dwarves already there, along with a few Elves sitting at another table. Her companions were more subdued than they were last night, which was better for her social anxiety. She did see that there were two kegs of wine nearby with a third on the table, and all of the Dwarves were drinking. Quietly she ate her breakfast, which consisted of mainly fruit with some pastries and buttered bread.

Unfortunately, much like coffee, Middle-Earth had not discovered the wonders of pancakes. However there were strawberries that Ruby ate with abandon. All in all it was quite filling, even though she longed for some bacon. While she ate, she occupied herself by catching up in her journal.

"What are you doing?" The gentle question spurred Ruby from her project to look at the Hobbit that asked it.

"I'm filling in my journal of what's happened so far. The gang back home's never gonna believe me about all this without proof," Ruby emphasized her point by gesturing with her book.

"Huh. That's actually a good suggestion," Bilbo said to himself, as if it was something he's never considered before. Then he frowned. "How come I've never seen you with it before?"

Ruby thought on it, puzzled as well, before she shrugged. "Guess I never brought it out in front of y'all." _Plus I'm kinda a private person when it comes to personal things._

"Fair enough."

Ruby drifted back to her journal again, but her thoughts were now elsewhere. _At some point I think I should talk to that Elrond guy about getting home. He seems as wise as Gandalf, and not as… eccentric… yeah, let's go with that. Plus there should be a library here filled with ancient tomes and secret, powerful magics inscribed in them… at least, if this were one of those fairy tale stories… which, this world, Middle-Earth, seems like it is actually. Man, Blake would love it here with the lore stuff. And Yang would probably find enough Orcs or trolls to punch to be happy here. Weiss… maaaay have a bit more of an issue here, since there isn't much in the way of fancy places to stay, though Rivendell comes close. I'm sure she'll adapt._

Now finished with her food, she finished up the last line and parted ways with the group, going to ask if there was a place she could wash up. Fortunately, she ran into a familiar face.

"Oh, hello again…uhh… Arwen, right?"

The raven-haired beauty gave her a smile. "Good morning Ruby. Is there something you need? You appear to have a question you want answered."

Ruby chuckled embarrassedly. "You caught me. Is there someway I could wash both myself and my clothes? And maybe get some extra clothes?"

"There is. Follow me." She turned and Ruby trailed behind her. A short time later, they entered into an open grotto with a series of pools carved into the rocks with mountain water filling them up. "This is one of the bathing areas," Arwen gestured. "Soaps and bathing salts are over there. Towels and robes are over there, so you may leave your clothes with me and they'll be returned to you when washed, along with the spare set you desired."

 _Oh… it's open aired… ah, never been in a public bath before. At least the gym showers had stalls… okay Ruby, suck it up and deal with it. Just get clean and get on out._ Ruby had to hold back a sigh. _I don't like cold bathes…_ "Alright, I'll- uh, just get changed then…" Ruby walked away, grabbing a long towel to change out of her clothes. She didn't see the amused look Arwen had as she watched her go.

A minute later Ruby walked back with the town tightly wrapped around her, carrying her clothes in a bundle, minus her Scroll and belt, of which she had tucked away in an accessible nook. "Thank you so much for this!" Ruby thanked Arwen as she handed the clothes over.

Arwen gave the girl a smile and after some parting words, left Ruby alone to bathe. Still holding the towel, Ruby crept up to the bathing pool and carefully lifted up her leg and tested the water with her toe. _Okay… it's not ice cold at least. It's almost like a swimming pool back home._ Ruby ditched the towel and submerged herself, grateful for the change to finally get rid of all the grime with a deep scrub.

 _Ahhh… my head's been getting itchy from not washing it. Yang would be living a nightmare here trying to keep her mane clean,_ Ruby giggled to herself as she lathered her head with soap, content with life.

* * *

As much as she would've liked to stay and continue bathing, Ruby still wanted to explore Rivendell. So after rinsing and then drying off (she got over the openness of the pool early on) she found some clothes that were left on a bench for her, presumably left by Arwen when Ruby wasn't paying attention.

The fabric was comfortable, feeling like silk but having the thickness of cotton and the comfortable warmness of wool. It consisted of a top that had red sleeves –a little paler than she preferred, but she wasn't going to protest her host's generosity- that gradually shifted to a lighter black for the main body. There was a collar that went up her neck and a clasp in the front. Though there was a gap that exposed her collarbone, when it came back around it did so with dark gold and red embroidery.

The cuffs however were very open and loose –if she held her arms up parallel to the ground, they would've hung a good three or four inches. _I'll have to find something to pin them up or something,_ Ruby thought. That seemed to be a fashion statement with the elves, and while it looked nice, it really didn't suit her needs. In any case, the cuffs were trimmed with pretty black and gold embroidery.

There was a red cummerbund included that Ruby greatly appreciated, so she could wrap it around her midsection to corral the top she felt she was swimming in –even though it strangely fit… just not closer to the bottom. Additionally there was a dark brown skirt thing (Ruby didn't know the name for it) along with some new leggings. There were a pair of soft shoes waiting for her, but she decided to wear her boots as they felt better and were more practical for fighting.

 **(G: I'm kinda bad at describing clothes, so a drawing of it is now up on Deviant Art, look in my AN at the end.)**

Once Ruby managed to get her new ensemble on, she exited out of the area and was soon greeted by Arwen. "Cin thír trului fein e tuin lanat."

Ruby blinked. "Umm…"

"Forgive me," Arwen apologized. "I am unused to others having no knowledge of Sindarin. I merely said that you look refreshed in those clothes."

"Ah, well, thank you," Ruby said with a slight blush at the compliment. "I'm kinda surprised you could find something that fit me." Ruby then held up her droopy sleeve cuffs and amended sheepishly, "For the most part."

Arwen gave a wry smile. "I noticed that you possess different clothing than what I've seen outside Imladris. I have seen Man's fashion, but I do not believe that I have ever seen clothing similar to those you possess. I chose the ones that were closest that I still had which were the closest fit."

"Thank you- wait, these are your clothes?" Ruby asked, irrationally concerned for a moment that Arwen would ask for them back, ignoring the fact that the Elf was the one that provided them.

"Yes, though I've long outgrown them," Arwen admitted.

"But… don't you want these back for, I don't know, sentimental reasons? To remember your childhood?" Ruby knew that she still had some clothes when she was little… though she suspected dad saved her baby clothes to her dismay.

"I haven't worn those in over two thousand years, so it will be of greater use if you have them, as a token of goodwill."

Ruby froze as she realized what Arwen just said. _T-two thousand!_ "Uhh… If you don't mind me asking, and it's totally fine if you don't want to if it's insensitive or something-"

"Two-thousand, seven-hundred," Arwen answered the question Ruby was getting at. Ruby's mouth abruptly dropped to the ground at the number. _I-I always figured Elves were immortal like in the stories… but to have her someone say it so casually! And she's not even probably that old compared to others like her father! He probably has a good thousand years on her!_ **(G: Oh Ruby, if only you knew…)**

Arwen's gentle laughter brought Ruby out of her shock. Picking up her jaw, Ruby started to apologize, but was interrupted. "Ruby, I do not take offence from your reaction. Those who are unfamiliar with Elves commonly have similar reactions."

"I mean, I've read about Elves, but they were all in fantasy books! I never expected to meet real ones –not to mention Dwarves, Wizards, and trolls," Ruby exclaimed.

Arwen had an interested look on her face. "Fantasy books?

Ruby made to answer, but the words got caught in her throat. After all, how was she supposed to tell someone that fantasy books were more-or-less like their reality… but fake. "It's, ah, a type of genre. Like you have history, kid books, fiction, sci-fi, comics, mystery, and I'm just confusing you more and more aren't I?" Ruby rambled on before shutting up.

Arwen gave her another one of her calming smiles. "Only a little, though I do appreciate your openness and enjoy learning more about where you're from, though I know not the name of the region you've come from." Arwen said this in a way that made it sound like a question.

"Thaaat's a bit of a long story," Ruby admitted, not knowing how to currently broach the topic. "Oh, that reminds me though, do you know where I can find Elrond? I have a few things I want to talk to him about." Like if he knows anything about magic that could send me back home.

"He's indisposed until midday, but I'll tell my father you wish to speak with him," Arwen agreed.

"Good, thank you… Wait. _Father_? He's your dad?" That was new information to her.

"Yes, Lord Elrond is indeed my father," Arwen confirmed, amused at the human girl's reaction.

"Ohhh my head," Ruby moaned, from the many shocks from this one conversation. _And there's bound to be more when I talk with Elrond…_

Arwen tittered at Ruby's slightly melodramatic response, then said, "I believe I will take my leave before I give you cause to faint. Tenna' telwan. Until later."

"Uh, yeah, until later," Ruby awkwardly replied, and watched as Arwen left, disappearing around a pillar. "Stupid social awkwardness," she muttered to herself as she kicked the ground, embarrassed at how she handled the conversation.

Shaking off the feeling of being sorry for herself, Ruby continued the finishing touches of dressing herself. Well, _I can't exactly pin my cloak to my shirt with how it's designed… maybe if I wrap it around my shoulders… but my pin's aren't thick enough – oh I know!_ Ruby unpinned her metal rose emblem from her belt and used it as a makeshift broach. "There, that works! Now I just need to pin these cuffs together…" Using her cross pins, she crudely wrapped her sleeves around her wrist to keep them from hanging down so far. "Well, it's better than nothing."

To be prepared for her talk with Elrond, Ruby made her way back to her room and grabbed her stuff, and strapped her sword to her belt –thankful the sheath had a belt-loop. "Now… picture time!"

It was still an amazing day, and since there was only one pressing thing instead of multiple, Ruby could enjoy the day a bit more. Stepping out onto a balcony, Ruby took in a deep breath of near-magical air. _It's… incredible the peace I feel… I can almost forget about all my problems…_

Ruby started wandering around and pulled out her Scroll, commencing her impromptu photo opp. She ignored her battery life number and took as many pictures as she could. A statue looked interesting? Click! Cool tapestry? Click! A musty room filled with books? Click click click! Ruby had a feeling she had a goofy grin on her face as she did all of this, but she didn't care.

"Miss Rose?" Ruby turned to see Bilbo behind her.

"Oh, hi! Just taking some pictures like I said," Ruby explained, waving her scroll for emphasis.

"I… still don't get how you can do that," Bilbo said, looking over her arm to see the screen. Ruby swiped across it to rifle through the pictures to show him what she'd taken. "You've said it's not magic, but I have no other explanation for it."

"Um, definitely sure it's not, but there's a quote from a guy in my world… can't quite remember it, but it goes like, "once technology advances to a certain point, to others it may look like magic," or something."

Bilbo nodded in understanding after taking a moment to translate Ruby's garbled saying. "So you're saying that maybe in the future we'll have things like this?"

Ruby shrugged, "Sure! Why not? I mean, in my world, eighty years ago Crescent Rose wouldn't have been possible to build. It just takes time."

Bilbo considered this, and then decided, "No offence meant, but I think I'll stick with what I know right now, thank you." Ruby gave a small giggle at that proclamation.

"None taken. Soooo, this place sure has a lot of stuff. Not surprising considering the age of Elves…"

"Must be great at storing stuff," Bilbo quipped, earning another giggle from Ruby. They fell into a comfortable silence as they continued exploring, letting the feeling of agelessness creep over them, the reverent feeling of long eras coming to them. They made their way into a foyer, and decided to go up the set of stairs that were there. Up there as they stepped off was a beautiful painting that Ruby took a picture of (without flash –she knew that much). But what caught both of their attention was a statue holding a shattered sword.

The sword itself would've been a long sword, but was broken into 6 pieces, hilt included. While Bilbo turned away from it after giving it a good look, Ruby was interested in it. _The breaks are… almost too clean. No splinters missing, no chips, it shattered- and in a weird place, closer to the hilt… actually, I think it broke from the hilt,_ Ruby observed, as she looked at the hilt piece in comparison to the others.

A sudden urge to look behind her came upon her, and a stirring painting caught her attention. It was an image of a man in armor, on his back, defiantly raising a broken blade (the same broken blade behind her, Ruby noted) against a monstrous humanoid figure of darkness – all upon a ravaged landscape. The blade was shining with white light, a symbol of defiance against the creature…

Ruby surprised a shiver looking at the humanoid creature, for even in painting, it portrayed a powerful evil beyond that of the paint. And Ruby had the feeling that this being was Evil with a capital 'E'. It reminded her of the Grimm –the pitch black matt and the shadowy haze emanating from it in particular. What was odd was the yellow splotch on the hand holding a weapon, but Ruby didn't pay it much attention, captivated by the entirety of the painting.

That was until she felt a shiver go down her spine. The closest she could get was a feeling of dark foreboding and apprehension without reason. She took a picture, feeling like she was doing something forbidden, and then asked Bilbo, "Hey, uh, let's head outside, if that's alright with you?" He seemed to be shaken out of a slight stupor, but he agreed and the two of them made their way to the beautiful outdoors.

Ruby couldn't stop taking pictures. Everything was so beautiful and full of life. The architecture and sculptures were phenomenal. Birds and other animals made their presence known with their calls, and the sound of water streaming and rushing was so incredibly soothing that it wasn't any stretch to imagine nodding off listening to it. Both of them relaxed and had content smiles on their faces, and just rested for a moment. No thoughts of their troubles, no looming mountain with a dragon, no pressing urgency to return home.

Just. Peace.

There were many pauses as the two just took deep breaths of the air and found no urge to hurry to see anything. _I could get used to it here. I could almost forget about my problems…_

 _Almost,_ she regretfully thought. _I've been here for over 2 months… closer to 3-ish. I've missed so much back home. What are Dad and Sis thinking? I'm sure they're worried out of their minds. And what about Weiss and Blake? What are they thinking? How's the team functioning without me?_

With these worries worrying her, the two finished their unintentional loop of the pathway and found themselves on a balcony overlooking the grounds. Ruby had to bite back a giggle at how Bilbo's head barely cleared the railing as to do so would probably be rude. There was a few minutes where they spent them in comfortable silence before a voice broke it. "Not with your companions?" Ruby looked over to see that Elrond himself had come to them.

"Oh, no… to be honest I kinda needed a break from them," Ruby replied. "Besides, this place is so beautiful, it would be a shame to not see it."

Elrond nodded in agreement. "Indeed, Miss Rose. Those that come to Imladris are captivated by the blissful feeling, as they find their souls healing from contentment." Before Ruby could respond to that observation, Elrond spoke to Bilbo. "And you, Mr. Baggins? Why do you find yourself away from your companions?"

There was a brief pause, and then Bilbo said, almost as a matter of fact, "I shan't be missed… The truth is most of them don't think I should be on this journey."

Ruby frowned at that, unhappy that Bilbo would think so, despite being overhearing some of the Dwarves muttering about it. _I mean, it's one thing to think that he's not ready, or if he does something out of ignorance or inexperience, but there's a line between that and being completely impolite and downright disrespectful, not letting him learn and grow at all._

Ruby didn't say anything as she waited for Elrond to respond. "Indeed… I've heard that Hobbits are very resilient."

Bilbo gave a laugh, almost like a scoff, but then realized Elrond wasn't making any sort of disparaging comment and incredulously asked, "Really?"

Elrond nodded, making a hum. There was another brief pause before he remarked, "I've also heard they're fond of the comforts of home."

Ruby watched on as Bilbo considered this and then remarked back, " _I've_ heard that it's unwise to seek the counsel of elves, for they will answer both yes and no." There was a moment Ruby started sweating before Elrond gave a smile at the joke.

"Well that's a problem for me then," Ruby said, continuing the joke now that it was okay, "since I _do_ want to seek the counsel of elves."

"Yes, I heard from my daughter that you wished to speak with me. I would ask that any pressing matters wait until after supper tonight," Elrond requested, "and with that I extend an invitation to you to join Gandalf and I in a much needed conference come nightfall, where similarly important matters will be discussed."

"Oh, okay, su- I mean, I humbly… and graciously accept your invitation," Ruby corrected herself, trying to be official, though with the amused look on Bilbo's face, it didn't bolster her confidence.

"I will await your arrival then," Elrond said. If he was amused he was doing a good job of hiding it.

"I do have one quick question though," Ruby hurriedly said, and unbuckled her newly acquired sword. "I can't read Elvin… Elvish, so, could you please tell me what it says?"

"Very well," Elrond said as he took it, then unsheathed the sword, analyzing the elvish lettering that wrapped around it. He finished, but then gave Ruby a keen look that made her want to squirm. "And you acquired this from the same troll horde that Mithrandir and Thorin obtained their swords?" At Ruby's uncertain nod, Elrond continued.

"It seems fate directed you to choose this sword, Ruby Rose. The language is out of the First Age of this world, older than I. In its original tongue, it goes, 'Ana varya a víre, sina Telpë Necel nauva I atalntëllo mornië'. In Common, it reads, 'To protect a rose, this Silver Thorn will be the downfall of darkness.'"

Ruby froze as he said that. _To protect a rose… silver thorn… How…? It's like it was made with me in mind, but that's impossible…_ "So its name is Silver Thorn?" Ruby asked to clarify, trying to overcome the odd feeling she had.

Elrond nodded, handing it back to her. "An fitting name for the one who wields it. Especially for one with your eyes…"

"W-what about my eyes?" Ruby asked, for once hoping to get answers from someone.

"You have the eyes of a warrior," Elrond said, "and I do not mean just of experience.

"Throughout our history there have been many heroes in legends who have had silver eyes such as yourself. Men, mainly. Some Elves, fewer Dwarves. It is said those born with silver eyes are blessed by the Valar to be great warriors," Elrond explained, with Ruby eagerly listening. "All of whom fought against the forces of darkness. Some have been known to hold back whole armies of Orcs by themselves with their skill. However, Orcs and other dark creatures learned to fear these warriors on a primal level, and as such, learned to hate and destroy these warriors. Entire bloodlines were exclusively hunted down by the Enemy, so that they would not produce such warriors ever again. It has been almost nine hundred years since I have seen another with your eyes, and throughout that time I have not heard word of another. I fear that the Silver Eyes have been hunted to extinction in Middle-Earth.

"However, I can feel that there is something different about you, Miss Rose, and as such I do not know what having silver eyes entails for you here. From your questions, it seems you are unaware of your heritage. Perhaps you possess some hidden skill beyond that of your other talents, or something else entirely. I cannot say…"

There was silence again, filled with uncertainty for Ruby and Bilbo, while Elrond looked pensive. "While I suspect one of you ultimately will not accept, you both are more than welcome to stay here, if you so desire." Elrond finally said as he turned away from them and left them to their tremulous thoughts.

* * *

Time passed, Bilbo and her parted ways, and when Ruby saw Elrond next (which was only an hour or two after), he and another elf looked exasperated, though the raucous laughter of Dwarves somewhere nearby gave a pretty good reason. _I pity their food supplies_ , Ruby thought, remembering the 'party' at Bilbo's house back in the Shire, and how much was left. _It seems so long ago that that happened. And I'm still here, no closer to coming home._

With nothing much to do, Ruby decided to get to it and clean her baby, Crescent Rose, as there was all that disgusting Orc, Warg, and Troll blood still on it despite the majority wiped off. _At least with Grimm they don't leave blood when they dissolve,_ Ruby thought after scrounging up some cloths that would work for her. She found a big enough table in an empty room and begun her work. Having brought along her backpack, she pulled out her emergency repair kit, which had most of the materials needed to disassemble Crescent Rose for fieldwork. A more detailed and in-depth cleaning would have to wait until she got back home.

The blade was the easiest, if not the most dangerous due to the sharp blades, to clean, as all she needed was water and a good scrub –since she didn't know what other cleaning materials there were she could ask for, and she felt bad for getting so much already.

The rifle part was more complex, as she did the best she could cleaning out the Dust residue from the chamber and the barrel without the proper cleaning materials, though she had the cleaning snake and a small tube of oil from her kit, and made due. Ruby let the familiar smell of powder and grease ease her mind from the unsettling revelation of her sword's name.

 _Telpë Necel. Silver Thorn. And if the message it has wasn't ominous enough… it's too eerie. Rose, like my name. Thorn like roses have, and silver for my eye color… Why does everyone seem to comment on my eye color?! Anyway, Elrond said Silver Thorn, Telpë Necel –I think I'll use the Elvish name as it sounds cooler- was made in the First Age? And it's the… third? if I recall, and older than him! Someone must be having a fun time with my life right now…_ Ruby growled to herself, much like a puppy does to try and be intimidating, but it just comes out more cute than frightening.

"Miss Rose?" Ruby turned to see Arwen behind her again, holding a bundle of familiar clothing. "I've come to return your other clothes."

"Oh! Thank you very much! Ah, just put them on my bag, I really don't want to touch them right now," Ruby said with a grin, wiggling her grimy fingers for emphasis. Arwen gave a tinkling laugh, but seemed enamored with what Ruby was doing and all the pieces of her weapon.

"This is your weapon of choice?"

Ruby knew her eyes lit up. Talking about weapons never failed to excite her. "Yep! Meet Crescent Rose, designed and built by me! A fully functional scythe and sniper rifle… uh, just think of it as a kind of crossbow that shoots way faster and further," Ruby added, now familiar with the expression at the unfamiliar (to them) term of 'sniper rifle'.

"You made this?" Arwen questioned, amazed that it was so.

"With the help of my Uncle Qrow. He's a teacher at the school I used to go to and also uses a scythe, though he uses it more in its sword form," Ruby added, almost to herself. "Anyway, he helped me build and train to use a scythe, and I think I'm pretty good with it," Ruby said modestly.

Arwen looked somewhat confused and asked, "Why would a teacher need to use a weapon unless he was a swordsmanship instructor?"

"Oh, well…" Ruby then explained about the Creatures of Grimm, likening them to the other creatures (whose blood she'd just cleaned off) of this world, except more bloodthirsty and animalistic. Arwen was understandably concerned, but was now more understanding.

At this point, Fili, Dwalin, and Oin had found them and, with Arwen amusedly ignoring Kili's poor flirting attempts, immediately zeroed in on Ruby's weapon, commenting on the craftsmanship and quality of the materials. Ruby was basically finished and decided to 'wow' them by reassembling her baby back together, describing each step as best she could.

Arwen had made a discreet departure, having enough of weapons talk for some reason, and after finishing up and cleaning off the Dwarves took their leave. _Alright, let's do an inventory check,_ Ruby decided and looked through her backpack. _Have my journal, two spare clips… 59 bullets left… definitely need to conserve ammo… Some gold coins that I got from that troll hoard… Not much else, so that leaves room for my clothes. Despite the cuffs, these are really comfortable._ Her inventory complete, Ruby jotted down some new stuff about Rivendell in her journal before she went outside with the intention of finding a place to make sure her baby was working properly.

Ruby found a wide courtyard and started a few practice katas. She fell into the familiar rhythm of swings and feet movements. In retrospect, she could see how some would liken fighting to dancing ( _lookin' at you Ozpin_ ) after seeing recordings of her in action, and it was strangely therapeutic to do this once she fell into that Zen state.

Once she felt comfortable with how she felt, Ruby came out of her meditation and collapsed Crescent Rose. When she looked up however, the restful feeling was gone as she had acquired an audience of Elves who were all viewing her display. Ruby's face burned from embarrassment at being the center of attention, and after a sheepish wave of acknowledgement, made a quick getaway.

Now at a loss for what to do, as she didn't feel up for taking more photos, Ruby took a nice nap for an hour or two, and then woke up in time to have some dinner. She ate with the Dwarves and Bilbo this time, unlike breakfast, and the Elves had apparently caught and cooked a deer for them. Ruby noticed that the Elves mainly ate vegetarian style, but with the deer it seemed they weren't as adverse to the idea of eating meat than she assumed.

"'Bout time we had some meat that wasn't from our provisions," Gloin said as they tore into their meal. Ruby nodded in agreement, as while the fruits and stuff were filling, she did want something a bit more. Bombur of course had a larger portion of the deer than others and was basically munching down on everything that was put in front of him. No surprise there.

Dwalin was taking his time and keeping an eye out. Ruby noticed that he seemed the most on edge, constantly scanning everyone and everything as if he were on watch duty. Perhaps spurred on by his example, Ruby as well looked around, with plenty more genuine curiosity than Dwalin. _Where's Thorin? And where's Gandalf for that matter? I really don't know when this meeting is going to be held._

"You looking for Gandalf?" Ruby looked to see that Balin had spoken to her. When Ruby nodded, Balin explained, "He's probably with Thorin and our hosts, trying to convince them of the necessity of our journey."

"Why is there such debate about all this?" Ruby asked. "I would think it should be easy to let us do this. I mean, it's the best option. What are we going to do instead, let that dragon sit around?"

"Lord Elrond is a wise man, but I think he is among the majority who dare not provoke the dragon without certainty of success. And as much as I hate to admit it, certainty is something we do not have," Balin sighed.

"… Well, we're trying to make the world a better place, aren't we? Getting rid of a dragon and giving you and your kin a home should be enough to give us strength. Hope that we will succeed. I guess the others don't have as much of it and don't see what we do," Ruby spoke.

Balin regarded her with a warm smile. "I'm glad you think that way. Yes… Yes, we have hope. That is what's driving us and giving us strength. We can do no less." Ruby didn't quite know how to continue the conversation, so she awkwardly dropped it and focused on eating some more.

Fili and Kili were messing around with Ori, who was also giving as good as he could, and adding to the general raucousness of the meal. Bifur was doing his own thing, Dori and Nori were having their own conversation, with Oin chiming in. Bilbo was keeping to himself, but despite wanting to just be next to him she couldn't sit next to him at the moment.

 _It's strange… I've grown –well, not_ used _to them, but know them well enough that I feel comfortable around them and to know their habits… It's a little strange now that I think about it, but I think that I'm not letting the whole different world thing get to me that much._

The sun went down and the Dwarves went from eating in the dining areas to eating in their own area. Ruby kept to the outskirts, anxiously waiting to be summoned by Elrond to that meeting thing.

Instead of Elrond, it was Gandalf. "Ah, Ruby," Gandalf said as he approached. "Good to see you. I trust today was fruitful?"

"Pretty much yeah," Ruby nodded. "So is that meeting happening soon?"

"Yes, indeed. I've come to collect you per Elrond's invitation, _though I was the one who asked for you_ ," he said in a conspiratorial whisper. "In fact I insisted on it, as I feel you have a key role in what's to come and need to know all you can about this world. But first, do you have all your gear?"

"Oh, uhh, yes? Yes," Ruby said, momentarily frazzled by the question.

"Good. Very good. If you'll follow me then."

"Okay then. Lead on," Ruby said, unsure what to say at the moment. She followed Gandalf, who quickly met with Elrond.

"Mithrandir. Miss Rose," he greeted them, "I trust you've so far found your stay in Rivendell to be pleasant?"

"Oh yes! And I also want to thank your daughter again for helping me with… _everything_ today," Ruby replied, remembering that Arwen was his daughter.

Elrond gave a pleasant smile. "My Daughter has told me that you are a delightful and humble young girl. It seems she has become fond of you." Ruby just gave an awkward laugh, rubbing the back of her head at the complement. After a moment, Elrond then focused on Gandalf after glancing in the direction of the Dwarves. "I do not mind if she comes to this meeting, but I still do not agree with your decision to let Thorin Oakenshield proceed on this 'quest'. Doing so at this time could disrupt the balance that we have."

"And when should they try? In a year? A decade? Longer? They have waited long enough," Gandalf challenged Elrond as they started walking. Ruby followed behind them, not daring to let her mouth go, yet she wished she could speak up for Thorin and the others. Though Gandalf seemed to be doing so just fine.

"And what would you have them do? They number but thirteen, fourteen and fifteen if you include Mr. Baggins and Miss Rose. Such meager numbers do not lend belief in their ability to take back their mountain. Are you prepared to ask, to beg others for help they may not give? Help that Oakenshield seems reluctant to accept? And even if he tries anyway, will he be held answerable for their actions if the worst is to occur? Or will you continue to urge them along this foolhardy path? Despite my desire to see Smaug erased from the face of Middle Earth, I do not believe that they can succeed, nor do I have any aid to give them."

Gandalf tiredly replied. "With or without our help, these Dwarves will march on the mountain. They're determined to reclaim their homeland," he stated as a matter of fact. "I do not believe Thorin Oakenshield feels he is answerable to anyone. Nor, for that matter, am I." Gandalf said, and Ruby couldn't entirely suppress the urge to snort.

By this time they had come to an outdoor pavilion, with a stone slab acting as a table in the center. Like everything here, there were elaborate carvings on the stone architecture, and the view was one of the valley beyond.

Ruby almost ran into Gandalf and Elrond when they stopped just before crossing through the archway. "It is not me you must answer to," Elrond told Gandalf, and then motioned with his head to something ahead. Gandalf stilled as he saw this thing… or person rather, Ruby corrected herself. Impatient with the two taller men, Ruby snuck around Gandalf, and froze herself when the person… the lady's eyes met hers.

She was an Elf, but that description was woefully insufficient to describe the woman Ruby saw. Her hair was golden, glowing under the moonlight and her robe was a silvery blue. Ethereal was but one word that came close to reality. Like those other Elves, there was no telling her age, but Ruby could feel that she was far older than Elrond. There was nothing that outright showed it, but Ruby just got this feeling…

Gandalf spoke, surprised and astounded to find her here. "Lady Galadriel."

"Mithrandir," she greeted, her voice melodious and low. She didn't raise her voice, yet Ruby could hear her as if she were next to her. Then she started speaking in elvish, and Ruby lost the conversation as Gandalf replied in the same language, bowing to the lady in silver. Something must have passed between the two as Galadriel smiled at Gandalf.

"I had no idea Lord Elrond had sent for you," Gandalf said in Common.

"He didn't. I did."

Another voice cut across the awe Ruby still felt, jarring her with the abrupt contrast. It was a man's, and sounded old, authoritative, and was the deepest she'd ever heard. She looked over and saw another old man, this time in white robes, all of which were different shades of white. His hair was straight and long, and his beard was also white, though it had a darker streak down the middle. In his hand was an ebony staff with a round, white gen at the top. _Another wizard,_ Ruby realized.

Gandalf gave a tiny " _Ah_ ," and greeted the other wizard. "Saruman."

"You've been busy of late, my friend," Saruman said, and while some part of Ruby thought he sounded slightly condescending, Ruby couldn't help but agree with him.

"I have," Gandalf agreed. "Though some of it not my doing. Now, we're being rude to our invitee." Ruby's eye took on a deer-in-the-headlights look as everyone focused on her. "This young lady here is Ruby Rose. Ruby, allow me to introduce Saruman the White, the leader of my Order, and Galadriel, the Lady of Lothlórien."

Ruby stammered for a moment before greeting them. "Hello, I'm Ruby Rose."

Saruman was the first one to speak. "Greetings, Ruby Rose. I hope my old friend hasn't caused you too many problems," he said wryly.

"Oh no, not at all," Ruby waved him off. "Gandalf's actually helped me plenty, considering my situation and all that."

"Oh? And what, pray tell, is your plight? I knew someone else had been invited, but I would not have guessed it would be her. What warrants her presence here?" Ruby felt unnerved at Saruman's blunt statements, and she herself wondered why she was here.

"She's a long way from home." Everyone turned to look at Galadriel, who was focused on Ruby. "She's traveled further than all but the Valar can go…" The looks returned to Ruby with questioning and interest.

"So, before we talk about the quest, I feel Ruby's predicament should take priority, as the other topic could take all night," Gandalf diplomatically said.

"Very well," Elrond said after a short pause. "Let us be seated." Gandalf and Saruman took seats at opposite ends, with Elrond and Galadriel taking the other seats. Ruby found herself sandwiched between Gandalf and Elven Lord in the pentagonal seating arraignment.

"So tell us, Ruby, of your story, as I've only heard brief mentions of your land," Elrond urged Ruby. "All that I know is you are far from here and bear weaponry unseen in Middle-Earth."

"Ah, well… I guess I'll start from the beginning… I'm a student at an academy called Beacon, and I came to Middle Earth by accident. You see, my partner at school was using some… volatile substances from our- _my_ land, known as Dust, and I startled her. There was an explosion," Ruby left out the secondary cause of _why_ there was an explosion, "and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a forest and Gandalf found me."

"I had sensed a sudden wave of magical energy," Gandalf explained. "From the center of it I found a girl in a red cloak… with an obscenely large battle-scythe," he added cheekily. "Ruby here, despite how ludicrous it sounds, is from another world entirely."

There was silence. Some were taking this information better. Galadriel's expression subtly shifted from neutral to slightly more interested. Elrond looked like he had a suspicion confirmed. Saruman however looked pensive, and Ruby felt the same x-ray feeling that Gandalf sometimes had. After a moment, Saruman spoke. "I doubt the validity of your claim, but I do sense something different about you Miss Rose. Something that I cannot place."

"You are not of this world," Galadriel spoke. Ruby looked at her and met her pools of wisdom and memory, of knowledge. The lights shone in her eyes, glittering in reflection. "There is a great strength in you, something none other in this world has… Tell us about the Dust you've spoken of," she said, asking her to continue.

"Okay… Dust is something that occurs naturally on my world, Remnant, and… I guess you can say they are magic crystals with elemental properties. Each type has a different effect; some produce fire or ice, some alter gravity or the earth. And we use Dust as energy to run our machines and give our weapons extra power. Weiss, my partner, knows more about Dust than I since she's the heiress of a large business back home, but there's still a lot we don't know about it. That's the gist of it.

"So this material… Dust, if commonly used in your machinery and weapons?" Elrond asked to clarify once Ruby finished. Ruby nodded in affirmation.

"Why is Dust so focused on offensive properties? What foe do you face that requires such weaponry?" Galadriel spoke.

"Well, Remnant has these creatures called Grimm. They're only purpose is to kill humans and destroy what we've built… kinda like the Orcs and Trolls here, except mindless –well, more so," Ruby amended, thinking back to the trio of slow trolls she fought. "They've attacked us for as long as our history can recall, and nearly gotten close to wiping us out if it weren't for our discovery of Dust and our Aura –our physical manifestation of our soul."

Deciding to give them a demonstration, Ruby closed her eyes and concentrated, falling into the meditative trance from pure practice – _thanks Uncle Q_ \- and flared her Aura briefly. When she opened her eyes, the red glow of her Aura faded. Upon the inquisitive looks, Ruby explained Aura's benefits, and the Semblances people have –this time without a demonstration.

Afterwards, the conversation shifted, though Saruman continued to doubt her claim she was from Remnant. Ruby kept giving details when they asked, clarifying she was a more than capable fighter –mentioning she fought three mountain trolls and won- and she had to mention her moon was shattered as another piece of evidence she wasn't from here–as seeing a completely whole moon was still a little surprising when she looked up at times.

"So this Dust is what caused you to come here?" Elrond asked, coming back to the original topic.

"Somehow…" Ruby weakly shrugged.

"As interesting as this is, what is the point of this?" Saruman once again asked, cutting to the heart of the matter. "Why are we bringing Miss Rose's troubles when there are other important matters to discuss?"

"Because Miss Rose has offered her help in that other matter, asking nothing in return. She knows hardly anything of our world, and what she does know, she's been told in the last 3 months. It's common decency to help her, and that is why I think it's the least we can do to search for information for her to get back home," Gandalf answered. Ruby gave him a look. _That's… not what we talked about really. I didn't ask for help… or at least not in the way he's making it sound. I think he's trying to get the others to help by putting it that way._

"If Miss Rose is looking for a way home, then I suppose that you would be looking for the equivalent of your 'Dust' then, as that's what caused your arrival here," Elrond said.

"I guess," Ruby said. "I don't know if Dust exists here or not, but I haven't seen any evidence. Since Dust is mined, and Thorin's going to Erebor, that's my best bet –however slim. They might not have known what Dust is or could activate it, so I want to check. If there isn't any Dust at all, then I want to find other ways to get back home. I think helping the Dwarves will in turn help me."

"Helping those Dwarves is a foolish endeavor. There are no such crystals or magical constructs that could help you. If there were any with the power you are seeking, it would have been known to us. And any magical items that originate from Middle-Earth that could have such power are long lost to us," Saruman said.

"Well I won't know until I've looked, will I?" Ruby shot back, slightly pleased when Saruman was silenced.

"I will aid you, Miss Rose," Elrond said. "Any knowledge that I find promising I will relay to you. Our archives are vast and stretch thousands of years. It's possible something might have slipped my mind. "

"I, as well, will search," Galadriel concurred.

"Very well," Saruman relented. "In any case, I think we've danced around the main issue for long enough. I do not believe that Miss Rose's presence is needed any longer," Saruman said. Ruby tried to not let her disappointment be shown, but she was kinda sad to be dismissed from something she was a part of.

"Let her stay," Galadriel unexpectedly said. When the others seemed to want to know why, she explained, "She should know fully well the dangers of what she's involved in."

Elrond and Saruman agreed, with Saruman begrudgingly so. Ruby was worried, as the Quest was the one subject they seemed split on, with Saruman and Elrond against, and Gandalf for. Ruby didn't know where Galadriel stood, as she seemed neutral, but also supportive of Gandalf.

"What is to be done with these Dwarves?" Saruman inquired.

"Done? Nothing. They have done nothing wrong and are simply trying to reclaim their homeland," Gandalf refused.

"From a vicious beast who has killed multitudes more than their number currently," Elrond pointed out. "If Smaug were to be enraged by the Dwarves, who knows what would be destroyed in his rampage."

"But what happens if they succeed?" Ruby questioned. "Wouldn't that work out for everybody?"

"It's not quite that simple," Saruman explained to her. "Erebor is the seat of power in that region, and whoever controls it has a vast stock of wealth and influence. _If_ the dragon were gone, then others would attempt to claim it for their own petty needs, inciting conflict in that region. Bringing chaos. All over a mountain and the gold it contains. And Thorin Oakenshield is not the Dwarf I would want sitting on that pile of gold. Gandalf, you continue to urge them onwards, but what don't realize are the probable outcomes if everything doesn't proceed exactly as you want it to."

Gandalf responded back, and despite herself, Ruby started to tune out the debating wizards. _Saruman really likes to talk,_ Ruby realized as she vaguely listened to the two discuss their points, with the other two offering their input at times.

At some point Elrond and Galadriel had gotten up. Galadriel had shed her slivery-blue cloak and was purely in white, with an equally long train behind her. Elrond was pacing back and forth, while Galadriel, after staring at the glowing horizon – _when did it start to become day and why am I not tired?_ Ruby wondered- started to walk around the table.

"Tell me Gandalf… Did you think these plans and schemes of yours would go unnoticed?" Saruman questioned Gandalf, with Ruby now paying attention again. Gandalf seemed tired himself at all these questions and doubts.

"Unnoticed? No I-ah… I'm simply doing what I feel to be right."

"The Dragon has long been on your mind," Galadriel stated. "Often your thoughts dwell there."

"That is true, my lady. Smaug owes his allegiance to no one save himself. His concerns are about his hoard and preventing anyone from claiming the mountain while he's still present. However, such petty concerns could easily be replaced by far more nefarious promises. If he should side with the Enemy… a dragon could be used to terrible effect."

Ruby suppressed a shiver at the thought. _I would hate to fight a dragon that was controlled by Torchwick –though I doubt he could control it… It would be even worse if there was a dragon that was also a Grimm._

"What enemy?" Saruman questioned. "Gandalf, the enemy is defeated. Saruon is vanquished. He can never regain his full strength. His servants are scattered, leaderless, free for us to pick off at our leisure."

Elrond spoke next. "Gandalf, for four hundred years we have lived in peace, a hard-won, watchful peace-"

"Are we? Are we at peace? The Dwarven clans would disagree with you Lord Elrond, from their losses. Many from the South would debate that as well. Even here, in the North, Trolls are coming down from the mountains. They are raiding villages, destroying farms. And now Orcs have attacked us on the road."

"Hardly a prelude to war," Elrond cautioned him.

"But it does sound like a growing problem," Ruby chimed in. Ruby hurried to explain. "If these things are happening, then there must be a reason of some sort."

"Orcs and Trolls hardly need a reason to cause trouble," Saruman dismissed. He sighed. "Always you must meddle," Saruman sounded exasperated with Gandalf. "Looking for trouble where none exists. The Dwarves have won their battles against the Goblins and the southerners have fought off those incursions into their kingdoms."

"Let him speak," Galadriel calmly interrupted his tirade. Saruman fell silent.

Gandalf continued. "There is something at work beyond the evil of Smaug. Something beyond the nature of Orcs and Trolls. Something far more powerful. We can remain blind to it, but it will not be ignoring us -that I can promise you. A sickness lies over the Greenwood," Gandalf said. "The woodsmen who live there now call it Mirkwood." _Cheerful name,_ Ruby sarcastically thought. She was definitely paying attention now, as she was worried about this world as well, despite it not being her own. _I just don't want to see evil wind._

"And, uh, they say…" Gandalf trailed off, seemingly unsure of what he wanted to say.

"Well? Don't stop now. Tell us what 'the woodsmen' say," Saruman prodded, definitely patronizing now. Ruby had to hold back a dirty look at his tone.

"They speak of a Necromancer living in Dol Guldur. A sorcerer who can summon the dead." Ruby frowned, as she was familiar with the concept of necromancers from fantasy stories, and that one tabletop game. In every iteration, a necromancer usually meant black magic and was bad. _It seems Middle-Earth follows the trend…_

"That's absurd," Saruman said, quickly and in a matter-of-fact way. "No such power exists in this world. I know you've examined that sinister fortress before. Twice now you have gone to Dol Guldur, and twice you have come back with nothing but words of a feeling. This 'Necromancer' is most likely nothing more than a mortal man. A conjurer dabbling in black magic who's recently taken up residence there, hoping to leach off the ambient darkness left over."

"And so I thought too. But Radagast has seen-"

"Radagast?" Saruman cut him off. "Do not speak to me of Radagast the Brown. Radagast the Bird-tamer. Radagast the Simple. No, he's a foolish fellow."

Ruby had to admit Radagast was odd, but not deserving of such distain. Gandalf seemed apologetic of the Brown wizard. "Well, he's odd, I grant you. He lives a solitary life."

"It's not that. I care not how he lives. It's his excessive consumption of mushrooms."

Ruby gave an unlady-like snort, and then covered up her face in mortification. "Sorry, continue!"

Saruman did so. "I've warned him. It is unbefitting one of the Istari to be wandering the woods caring not of his own image, or the image he gives of our order overall. And while he is close with the birds and the beasts, I can't say he's the same for other men. If he were to pursue more scholarly routes I would…"

Ruby lost where this was going as she noticed Gandalf was paying attention to something else, having a silent conversation with himself. However, she then saw Galadriel intensely focused on him, standing behind him.

"…listen to me. I would think I was talking to myself for all the attention that he paid." Ruby couldn't ignore the irony, as Saruman seemed to enjoy talking to himself, believing others were listening. However, her attention was drawn back to Gandalf as he took out something wrapped in cloth and placed it on the table.

"What is that?" Elrond asked, alarmed at its appearance. Ruby couldn't help but feel the same way and backed away from it, standing up herself.

"A relic of Mordor," Galadriel said, sounding frightened. Elrond, who had been reaching for it, pulled back. Even Saruman frowned in concern. Elrond once again reached for it and unwrapped the cloth, revealing a repulsive feeling blade that no-one should touch, let alone wield. It had a sinister aura to it, despite its innocuous placement.

"A Morgul Blade…" Elrond said.

"Made for the Witch-King of Angmar…" Galadriel added, very concerned. "And sealed away…

"Who… is this Witch-King, and what is Angmar?" Ruby asked, worried.

"Angmar was an evil kingdom in the North," Elrond explained. "It fell over nine hundred years ago, but not before bringing seven hundred of darkness, and destroying the Kingdom of Arnor. The Witch-King was the leader of Angmar, a foul being of darkness, and one of Sauron's most deadly servants. An undying wraith, bringing fear and turning the sternest of hearts to despair, and wielding the blackest of Magics."

"When Angmar fell, the Witch-King fled into the Ettenmoors and vanished from the North," Galadriel continued the history lesson. "The remnants of Arnor took all that he abandoned in his retreat and sealed them within the High Fells of Rhudaur. Disposed of them in a pit so dark no light could reach them."

"This is not possible," Elrond denied. "A powerful spell lies upon those Fells. They _cannot_ be opened. Blades like this cannot be forged readily, even by the Enemy."

"What proof do we have this weapon came from the Witch-King's artifacts?" Saruman questioned.

"I have none." Gandalf admitted.

"Because there is none," Saruman decided. "Let us examine what we know: A single Orc pack has dared to cross the Bruinen, a dagger from a bygone age has been found, and a human sorcerer who calls himself 'The Necromancer' has taken up residence in a ruined fortress. These isolated incidents don't say very much after all.

"The question of this Dwarvish company, however, troubles me deeply-"

"Now wait a minute!" Ruby shocked herself when she spoke out, interrupting Saruman from talking. Ruby scrambled to continue talking, whilst also forming her own thoughts. "I don't think we can move past this Necromancer thing yet. He sounds like a growing problem…" _This blade must've been the thing Radagast gave Gandalf, and if Radagast came from Dol Guldur…_ "You said the Witch-King was undead or something, right?" Elrond nodded, and Ruby continued. "What if this Necromancer was trying to revive the Witch-King or summon him to his side? That could explain the dagger's presence there."

"The Nine have been quiet ever since they took Minas Ithil and secured it as Minas Morgul…" Elrond mused. "We do not know what they might have concocted holed up there. But if they found a new master…"

"It's impossible," Saruman dismissed. "The Nine answer only to Sauron. A mere human cannot command one, let alone the strongest of them."

"But if this evil blade was found by Radagast in Dol Guldur, it means that The Necromancer is trying to accomplish something terrible. If this blade was made by such an evil thing, then something equally evil is at least trying to control them," Ruby said. "If the Necromancer and the Witch-King are somehow connected, then that means there is a greater threat we should put a stop too!"

"We?" Saruman's question brought Ruby's fervor to a halt. "You should not be getting involved with these matters. And for that matter neither should we. Only theories, guesses, have been heard here, but no proof – no evidence of a larger, nefarious scheme. We should get back to the task at hand. I'm not convinced that this quest should continue any longer Gandalf. I do not feel I can condone such a thing. If they'd come to me, I might have spared them this disappointment. I do not pretend to understand your reason for raising their hopes for an endeavor they will fail at."

Ruby noticed that Gandalf had looked away and was making eye contact with Galadriel, and there was that weird vibe going on between the two again. _If I didn't know better, I would've guessed Galadriel had a telepathic semblance._ That suspicion grew when Gandalf subtly nodded and Galadriel had a teeny smirk appear.

Over Saruman's talking, the sounds of footsteps coming closer was heard. The White Wizard trailed off as the Elf from the day before… two days before, approached. "My Lord Elrond. The Dwarves… they're gone."

"What do you mean 'gone'?" Elrond questioned.

"Last night they fell quiet and we assumed they had fallen asleep. But come daylight we found that their things were gone and the Dwarves nowhere to be found," the Elf explained.

Elrond and Saruman started talking with each other, debating whether to go after them and bring them back or not. Gandalf motioned for Ruby to come over. Once she was close, Gandalf spoke quietly. "Now Ruby, go along and catch up with your companions. Thorin knows that you'll return to them after we're done. Follow the Eastern path," he motioned towards the rock face. "Now go. I will follow presently," Gandalf said, adding a wink at the end.

Ruby couldn't help the smile that formed. _I have the sneaking suspicion that Gandalf knew they were going to do that._ She nodded in agreement, and looked over at Galadriel. She gave Ruby a soft smile, but then something peculiar happened. Ruby could hear her voice, but could see that Galadriel's mouth remained closed.

 _'Do not worry, young Ruby. You will find your way home and reunite with your friends.'_

Ruby's eyes widened. _I was right! She is telepathic!_ Galadriel looked away and Ruby snapped back to reality. She turned to Elrond and coughed to get his attention. "Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Elrond, and tell Arwen thank you again. Saruman, Lady Galadriel, I'm pleased to have met you," she nodded to each one. Despite her dislike of Saruman, she understood he was blunt and direct, and did mean for the best, so she didn't hold him ill will.

"Now I must be off!" and with that, Ruby urged her Semblance to her legs and let it envelop her body in the familiar urge to _run_. And she did, leaving behind some ruffled clothes and petals in the wind.

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* * *

"Be on your guard," Thorin announced to the company, as the end of the trail over the valley crest came into view. "We're about to step over the edge of the Wild." He halted and turned to Balin. "Balin, you know these paths. Lead on."

Bilbo was towards the end of the group, and as they were about to turn the bend, he couldn't help but stop and look back at Rivendell. The sunlight was hitting the entirety of the settlement and Bilbo had a feeling of desire to stay there. To forget about the quest and rest, before setting back home. It was a selfish thought, he knew so, but he couldn't help but feel the urge to head back home grow. The Dwarves, despite some of them becoming fond of him, never really believed that he would stick around. Every day that he stayed was another that he surprised them.

Leaving Rivendell, he felt that was his last chance to part ways amicably, before they returned to the road. But here he was –his stubbornness and desire to aid these Dwarves not yet run its course. And, if he admitted it, it was partially due to a red-cloaked girl that gave him the strength to stay.

 _I do wonder where Ruby went. She disappeared last night with Gandalf before Thorin announced that we would be leaving before dawn to avoid being held there… not that I would've terribly protested not leaving… Gandalf probably would return with Ruby soon, as he's involved with this quest –put it on track so to speak._

"Master Baggins… I suggest you keep up," Thorin said, breaking him from his thoughts. Bilbo turned to nod in understanding at Thorin. He looked back one last time before he would continue with them, but a red streak quickly approaching caught his attention. Before he could speak, the streak reached them.

 _Zoom-poof!_ Suddenly his vision was obscured with red rose petals as a gust of wind blew them into his face. "Hey guys!" Bilbo recognized the voice as the only girl that had accompanied them.

The Dwarves gave a cheer at Ruby's reappearance, as she'd become quickly popular with them. And Bilbo could see why: they had many similarities in interests and they respected her fighting skills.

"Miss Rose. So good of you to join us," Thorin said dryly, a minuscule, amused grin on his face.

"Ah, well, you know, try to get answers from Elven lords and they say both 'yes' and 'no'," Ruby shrugged, giving Bilbo a smile. Bilbo's eyes widened, remembering that he gave that same answer to Elrond the previous day. He felt… grateful that Ruby would use something he had said before.

"So do we have 'permission' to continue?" Thorin asked, becoming serious.

Ruby appeared to understand the subtext of the question and said, "Well, much like you guys, I left before they said anything. But I wouldn't stay unless they _do_ decide on something."

Thorin nodded in understanding. He said something in Dwarvish and they started moving again.

"Hey," Ruby greeted him.

"Hey," Bilbo replied, a little less enthusiastically, but with the same sincerity. Nothing more really needed to be said. Both were glad the other was there, and Bilbo hoped that he could find it in himself to continue onwards with them.

"Oh," Ruby suddenly exclaimed. "Do any of you guys have an extra pair of arm cuffs or something? 'Cuz these sleeves are not helpful in any way," she said as she held up her droopy sleeves.

The Dwarves laughter echoed as they entered the Wilds, aided by the voice of one, small Hobbit, following paths and roads long tread by many who had come before them, heading for a far off promise.

* * *

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* * *

They had run their Wargs to death to return to Dol Guldur with all the speed they could. Save for Azog's white wolf, which had been enchanted and enhanced with black magic, all of their mounts dropped dead from exhaustion. Even Azong's mount was tired from the distance run. But they had made it. And now Azog marched through the decrepit and darkened halls of Dol Guldur, seeking the center of his Master's presence.

He walked out onto a stone pathway and kneeled, waiting for his Master to grace him with his attention. Soon a black mist swirled around him, and he felt as if he were being analyzed, laid bare before this great power.

" ** _Why have you returned?_** " The voice of his Master questioned.

" _My Master, Oakenshield has a new companion. A human girl, who wields an unfamiliar weapon… Master, she's a Silver Eyer,"_ Azog said, looking into the swirling shadows, awaiting his Master's solution.

The shadows jolted and swirled with angry intensity, and a displeased sound howled through the air. **_"Our strength cannot be shown just yet. The time has not yet come. You do not have the numbers to face a Silver Eyer, and it is too dangerous for you to do so unaided… However…"_** His Master trailed off, and the shadow solidified further, condensing, as he seemed to draw something out of himself.

A tendril of darkness withdrew from the main section, revealing a sword unlike any Azog had seen. It was a scimitar, long and deadly, but instead of steel, the blade seemed to be made out of pure white bone, segmented, with pitch-black binding. The hilt jutted out into a spike, and the grip was also black. Red designs flowed like jagged rivers, and on the center of the blade was a red eye symbol. However, it was not his Master's, and it made Azog cautious.

The tendril placed the sword in front of Azog and withdrew. Azog noticed that the shadows were slower, and less dense. Was his Master… tired?

 ** _"This Sword… was unearthed in the First Age… and survived the Sundering. Neither I, nor my Master, know its origins… It was not made by our powers, but we can carry it, though not without burden. This blade will grant you the strength to defeat any Silver Eyer… but take heed not to use it incessantly. Its magiks are of a different kind, strange to this realm. Many have been corrupted by it, reduced to mindless, useless beasts. Care not to fall the same as others before you, my servant…"_**

With those last words, his Master withdrew, his shadow retreating further into his fortress, leaving the blade on the ground. Azog was cautious as he picked up the blade with his remaining hand.

Immediately he could feel the power this blade had. Strength beyond that which he had known before flowed through him, as he and the blade felt as one. Then he remembered his master's warning and sheathed the blade on his him. It felt as if the sword didn't want to be let go. It was then Azog understood his Master's warning, and vowed to only use it against two: Oakenshield and the Silver Eyer.

Determined and free from what little doubt he had, Azog marched back to his pack. _"Saddle-up you maggots! We must find Oakenshield! Go!"_

Minutes later, an Orc pack thundered down the pathway out of Dol Guldur, ready to bring death to their targets.

* * *

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* * *

Gandalf and Galadriel watched a flutter of red disappear around the cliffside. "You will follow them," Galadriel said, stating a fact.

"… Yes." Gandalf said.

"You are right to help Thorin Oakenshield. But… I fear this quest has set in motion forces we do not yet understand. The riddle of the Morgul Blade must be answered. Young Ruby was right to question the faint strings connecting them, though many threads are still unknown to us… Something moves in the shadows, unseen, hidden from our sight. It will not show itself. Not yet. But every day it grows in strength. It might be the Witch-King, attempting to recreate his dread kingdom, or the Necromancer seeking further power. Or something else entirely. You must be careful," she warned Gandalf.

Gandalf nodded in understanding and turned to leave, starting to walk away. However he was stopped by her voice once more. "Mithrandir? Why the Halfling?"

"I do not know…" he confessed. "Saruman believes that it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is… the small things. Everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

"Why Bilbo Baggins? Perhaps it is because I'm afraid… and he gives me courage."

Gandalf found that Galadriel had taken his hands, to reassure him. "Do not be afraid, Mithrandir." She picked a strand of hair that was in his face and caringly brushed it aside. "You are not alone. Though she is young, Ruby Rose also has a caring heart, a pure soul that can stay the darkness, and the Silver Eyes that have been long lost. Is that why you have brought her with you, to let her be a part of Thorin's company?" She asked him, as her gaze turned to her hand, which held a single red rose petal. All the others Ruby had made were gone, save that one.

"Honestly, I barely did anything," Gandalf admitted with a chuckle. "She agreed to come before I could even ask properly. I've found that that is who she is, honest and helpful to a fault, unable to stand by when she knows there's wrong in the world. Even in those smaller things."

Galadriel nodded, accepting his answer. "You have chosen well, Mithrandir… Ae boe I le eliathon, im tulithon," she said. _If you should ever need my help, I will come._

Gandalf bowed his head and felt her hands leave his. When he looked up, there was no trace of her. He smiled a bittersweet smile, knowing that the journey had only just begun.

* * *

 **XXXXXXXXXX**

* * *

 **Galen: I'm a horrible person for taking so long to update this.**

 **Ruby: Well, at least half of the delay wasn't purely your procrastination this time.**

 **G: True. Suffice it to say University managed to kill pretty much all motivation to put any true effort into writing. In-between the Winter and Spring quarters there was 1 week off - nowhere near enough time to recover from the finals I had. It felt I had just finished with one set before I was doing another. It was really disheartening and ruined a lot of extra-circular hobbies I had.**

 **R: But he got better... it just took a while. Galen's planning on setting aside time to actually write again, so expect to see plenty more updates... and maybe some new stories. Though you've yet to update _On The Road, Far From Home_ and _Stark Contrast_ , and _RWBHY: The Aura Mage_ in a long time, which are your three biggest stories beside this one. I'm not counting Rise because that was updated recently.**

 **G: Anyway, I'm back, and here's an update!**

 **R: And I finally got some new clothes! And they're Elven make too! Though they seem familiar...**

 **G: Yep. I intentionally made them similar to your Volume 4 and 5 look, so you have practice later when you actually wear them.**

 **R: Yay!**

 **G: *Laughs* Bit of an interesting story behind them. I wrote above that I'm bad at describing clothes-**

 **R: You're not the only one.**

 **G: So I needed to draw Ruby in her new ones. It was actually quite difficult to 'make' the V4 outfit, but not actually make it, and to Elvenize it -and that was an issue all on its own because I kept drawing them too much like Weiss' elegant clothes in V4/5 (mainly around the neckline, collarbone area) and Pyrrha's spartan look (around the waist with the cummerbund and belt). It was challenging to find the right mix between "Ruby" and Elven women styles, as they favor looser and more open clothing, with open necklines and flowing robes that don't work with Ruby's style and activities.**

 **I finally uploaded the drawing of Ruby's clothes, Telpë Necel, and the Grimm sword Azog has. It's up on my Deviant Art page (same username as here, OrangeGalen). And I was pretty much 3 months late...**

 **R: Those new clothes definitely wouldn't have gelled with me and messed up my fighting. But still, I'm glad I got to meet Arwen here! *Squeal* She's so pretty! Anyway, Galen debated briefly of adding another female Elf that would be around, but felt it was better to stick with an established character than build one up from the ground and make more work when he was already behind.**

 **G: Yeah, I was really pressed for time. So I'm about to start talking for a while, want to get out for a moment?**

 **R: Nah, I like learning about Middle-Earth and the behind-the-scenes for writing this.**

 **G: Alright. So I looked around and it seems many agree that in the movies, the whole Rivendell act lasts for two nights. In the book however, the Dwarves stay there for two weeks basically just sitting around. While The Hobbit is definitely more laid back in Elven/Dwarven relations, taking the broader history into account it doesn't fit. For the sake of expediency I took the Peter Jackson route and made it two days (though it's made to seem longer than 2 days in the movies as well... -_-). Doing so made time a little wonky, as a lot of things happen and people travel long distances in short periods of time. Saruman and Galadriel traveled all that way in a few hours to get to Rivendell? Oh well, blame magic. I do make it a bit more plausible with Azog as they killed their wargs to get to Dol Guldur.**

 **Speaking of time inconsistencies, the Hobbit movies tossed out the actual LotR appendicies timeline, with the Witch-King thing. In the actual book timeline, the Witch-King fled from Angmar in TA (Third Age) 1975 and was never found (no bodies like in the Hobbit movies). He resurfaced in TA 2000 to attack Minas Ithil with the other Nazgûl, and took it in 2002. In 2050 was was responsible for the then current king of Gondor's death (Eärnur -who in my head cannon, is the last Silver Eyed warrior), thus creating the line of the ruling stewards. So that whole ridiculous sub-plot in the movies has been restructured to as it is here to satisfy my fanboy.**

 **For further timeline tweaks, in the actual timeline, Gandalf goes to Dol Guldur twice: once in TA 2063, and then again in 2850. The second time is when he finds out Sauron is the one there, and also gets the map and key from Thráin. In the Movies, the 2nd one has the extended scene where Gandalf does to D.G and finds Thráin, so basically that whole thing is bumped forward in time for the movie-verse. A note: The Hobbit takes place in 2941. So the changes are that Gandalf gets the map and key before Thráin is captured, and doesn't find Sauron the 2nd time he goes to D.G, which is mentioned in my Council scene.**

 **The whole "who is the Necromancer?" question that every moviegoer already knew the answer to is changed so that the White Council knows Sauron is still around in some form, but believe he's so weak he can't do anything, and also believe that the Necromancer and Sauron are two different entities. In the movies, it seems Saruman is deliberately preventing them from attacking D.G, which gives the wrong impression that he's already evil. He's actually not, but he thinks the Ring is in the Anduin/Gladden Fields and doesn't want the others knowing he's searching for it. When it's actually found out it's Sauron, he 'okays' the attack for obvious, but power-hungry and selfish, reasons.**

 **I originally didn't like the tension between Saruman and Gandalf in the Movie, but as I looked deeper into the books, it wasn't actually too far off. While it's a brief mention, Saruman has a distain for Radagast, and looking at some of his dialogue, he's actually given lines in the Hobbit movie that more-or-less fit his character. He's not ensured by Sauron yet, but he's definitely not as white as his robes. I also poke fun at the Movies for having Saruman blabber on, as Ruby tunes him out.**

 **R: Yep. Would not stop once he started.**

 **G: So yeah, this whole timeline thing popped up about 2 days ago and caused me a minor headache since I'd forgotten how _wrong_ the Movie timeline is in relation to the actual timeline.**

 **This next bit is a personal gripe with the Movies. I dislike how Bilbo in the extended scene seemed fixated on the Ring in the painting when at that point he had no clue what it was, and I feel that contradicts how Hobbits are supposed to be resilient to altering-magics like the Ring does. Resilient, not immune. The Hobbit movies seem to have Bilbo form a fascination with the Ring, whereas in the books (while at that point Tolkien was still figuring out his world/history) Bilbo treats the Ring as a trinket and doesn't go ape-sh*t like movie Bilbo does on that baby spider thing if something so much as touches the Ring.**

 **R: Alright, you've blabbered on for long enough. It's my turn!**

 **G: Be my guest Ruby, I need to drink some water after that.**

 **R: So I want to clear something up that may be taken the wrong way. When I thought that the scary-menacing-armored guy-**

 **G: Sauron.**

 **R: Yeah, him. Go drink your water. Anyway, when I thought that he looked like the Grimm, I didn't mean that literally. With the way he was painted, with the wispy, smoky, ashen effect, he looked similar to them. Obviously he wasn't… isn't?... related to the Grimm. At all. No relation except evilness. And to address the sword he gives Azog, without giving anything away, Sauron -and Morgoth- did not create that sword. Sauron explicitly stated that he knows not the origin of it (wow, am I using period language or what?), and that even he doesn't know its full power. He knows that it corrupts those the wield it too often (no spoilers for what exactly happens), and basically doesn't want to use it himself, which is why he hasn't throughout the Ages, preferring his own weapons and creations. He can store it... basically in his evil inventory sub-space bubble or whatever, but that's about it.**

 **G: Alright, I'm back. Basically what she said. Now as for my reasoning for making such a thing, this is my butterfly effect starting to take form. Ruby's arrival has caused things to become different, and now we're starting to see more visible effects. Just by her presence, Ruby's caused the villains to 'power-up' in a way to fight her. This goes into a writing formula, where if you give the 'good guys' a power boost, the villain must also get one to keep them a threat. Ruby herself is the aid for the good-guys, so the bad-guys need one too. This technique is especially prevalent in fan fiction since the main characters usually get some sort of boost (ranging from small to obscenely overpowered) and the good ones give some sort of equal boost to the villain, otherwise the story ends up bland and uninteresting. That usually happens in crossovers, where someone super-powerful is thrown into the other world and there's no sense of danger or agency since the super-powerful character basically can't be threatened by the danger(s) in the world they find themselves in after.**

 **R: It should be obvious that this story isn't one of those cases. I'm just me. Yes I'm really good with my advanced weapon, and have added abilities, but I'm not OP. I can be hurt, and I'm definitely running out of ammo...**

 **G: You might want to get your priority of which one is more important straightened out Ruby... In any case, I'm doing my best to not make Ruby OP... or overly so, since her physical abilities are beyond what most can do in Middle-Earth.**

 **So yeah, last bit is the languages. Would you believe that after writing what Arwen said in Sindarin I completely forgot the english translation?**

 **R: Yes.**

 **G: Heh heh... anyway, it's basically Arwen commenting how Ruby looks refreshed after taking a bath and wearing new clothes. Moving on to Ruby's sword, the dialect is Quenya, which is the oldest Elvish there is.**

 **R:** **Telpë Necel, Silver Thorn. I love the name, but could do without the ominous and eerie message it has. Hope everyone likes the name. And those that would say it's too** **convenient... well, I hate to say it... but... Do you believe in destiny?**

 **G: I think we can agree you don't want to say that again. *Ruby nods while having a breakdown again* So, moving on. Since there isn't any complete translation sites for Elvish available (any dialect of it), I used what one gave me and then used a Quenya dictionary I found to fill in the rest of the saying on Ruby's sword. As much as I like and pretty much study Tolkien, his languages are the one thing I can't easily do yet.**

 **Alright, I think that's everything for now... though I'm writing this at 3 A.M and am loosing my ability to catch typos and remember everything. Plus I'm running on about 5 hours of sleep since I stayed up until 2 A.M yesterday. I checked previously before I was dead tired, but I'll be checking again and editing either typos or adding something I forgot in this AN... which is already over 2.5K words long.**

 **R: Better end it here then Galen and get some sleep.**

 **G: YEs please. Actually, I'm just going to sign out now and let Ruby turn off the lights. OrangeGalen out!**

 **-OrangeGalen**

 **R: Alright, so to finish off where Galen left me, Read, Review, Favorite, and Follow this story! Shout-out to those that asked about Galen and this story, so hope this was worth the wait. I can tell you right now Galen doesn't want to wait another year to update and will be actively writing more like he said. I'll make sure of it~ *Pulls out Crescent Rose* Heheheh... *cough* Anyway, hope you all enjoyed, and Galen will be more than happy to answer any PMs and fix any errors people find.**

 **So yeah, see ya!**

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Chapter length: 12,092.  
I'll need to do a recount of previous chapter lengths after the edits I made to them at some point.


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